Type 1 Diabetes, Cardiovascular Complications and Sesame (芝麻 Zhī Má)

Diabetes is a major concern among medical practitioners, with the annual mortality rate increasing up to 26.9% in a person aged 65 years or older and 11.3% in the adult. There are many serious complications associated with diabetes, particularly cardiovascular complications due to microvascular diseases. A prerequisite to reduce the risk of microvascular and neurologic complications of type 1 diabetes is normoglycemia. Insulin therapy is the most common treatment used nowadays in type 1 diabetes. However, this method still has many disadvantages such as increased episode of severe hypoglycemia, hypoglycemia unawareness, increased weight gain, transient exacerbation of pre-existing retinopathy, etc. Using insulin pump (the insulin pump is a medical device used for continuous subcutaneous insulin infusion to manage the insulin level in the treatment of diabetes mellitus), is associated with known disadvantages including increased ketoacidosis, infection at the infusion site, and the treatment being less suitable in young children (less than 7 years of age). Therefore, alternative treatment for diabetes is still in great demand. We took the approach of traditional Chinese medicine to discuss this matter. Sesame (芝麻 Zhī Má), a herb, has been used medicinally for thousands of years in almost all the countries in the world. The beneficial effects of sesame in remediating diabetes, such as hypoglycemic effects, antioxidant, anti-inflammatory, and hypolipidemic effects, improving fat metabolism, and reducing cholesterol, have been demonstrated in many studies,. However, reports on the effects of sesame in remediating cardiovascular complications in diabetic patients are limited, which necessitates further studies on the effects of sesame on cardiovascular complications.