Doctors cool to herbal tea diabetes remedy

Dibepan is a diabetes herbal remedy that some swear changed their lives, San Antonio television station KENS reported.

Doctors, however, said they aren't so sure.

"We looked on the Web about this (and) these people are very clever, there is nothing on the Web about this. It just says that it works," Dr. Sherwyn Schwartz, an endocrinologist and diabetes researcher in the San Antonio area, told the television station.

The herbal product from Mexico went on sale in San Antonio six months ago. Made from the root bark and leaves of a tree that grows in the tropics of Mexico, dibepan's maker said it helps the pancreas process glucose normally reducing blood sugar levels.

"I feel a lot better. I have a lot more energy, and it really controls my sugar level," tea drinker Richard Sepulveda said to KENS. Others said they've stopped taking their insulin without ill effects so far, the television station reported.

"I'm not saying it doesn't work if it does work," Schwartz said. "I don't know the side effects. I don't understand it; they don't give me information."

Copyright 2007 by United Press International