July 31, 2008 Researchers: Diabetics should 'spice' up diets Play video

(NECN/ABC) - Could an ingredient in curry reverse the symptoms of diabetes? Researchers working with mice have found that it could.

It may not be just your diet, but how you spice it that keeps diabetes under control. A natural yellow pigment in the curry spice turmeric, already known to have other health benefits, can also improve symptoms of diabetes in mice.

Drew Tortoriello and his team at the Naomi Berrie Diabetes Center in New York fed high-fat diets to lean mice.

They then added a high dose of turmeric's pigment, called curcumin, to the same diet of half the mice.

The "spice mice" lost only a little weight, but had healthier livers and less inflammation in their fat tissues.

ABC's Sunita Reed has the details.