Bitter melon can be used for relieving diabetes. Bitter melon, according to traditional food and medicine guidelines, has cooling properties and is used to beat summer heat and treat heat related illness. It cools down the organs in the upper and middle body, including heart, liver, stomach and intestine. When those organs are cooled down, the heat in the organs is reduced, therefore the water consumption is naturally reduced. The body will feel less thirsty, and no need to drink a lot of water. As we know that, diabetes (type 2) is a disease with the symptoms of thirsty – dinking a lot and peeing a lot. Bitter melon can cool down the body and reduce the water consumption and relieve thirsty, so it can relieve the symptoms of the diabetes.
Let’s compare bitter melon to watermelon. Watermelon also has cooling properties and is also used to beat summer heat and treat heat related illness. But watermelon has diuretic properties. You may have the experience that after eating watermelon, you have an increased amount of urine. As you can see that, this is still the same as the symptoms of the diabetes – “dinking a lot and peeing a lot”. You consume a lot of water through watermelon, but still pee a lot. Your symptoms of the diabetes are not relieved. Using watermelon to cool down the body is basically like using water as an agent to bring away the heat – By eating watermelon, a lot of water go through the body from the mouth to the bladder. The heat is brought away by the water.
Bitter melon is different. When you eat bitter melon, it will not increase the amount of urine. Bitter melon has cooling properties is not because it contains a lot of water, not because it uses high amount of water as cooling agent. Bitter melon works in another way to cool down the body. It treats thirsty without increasing the amount of urine.
That is why among the two cooling foods, bitter melon is beneficial to diabetes (relieve the symptoms of dinking a lot and peeing a lot), but watermelon has no this effect.
