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Thanks to Mr LYK who shared the following articles on the bitter gourd. About 155 other sites have featured  this post so I do not know which is the original.

Excerpt:

Bitter gourd (melon) is perhaps the secret vegetable of the Okinawa Islander longevity! Although the bitterness of Bitter-melon might turn some people away from, it can really sweeten your health because of its disease preventing and health promoting phyto chemical compounds.

Botanically it belongs to the family of Cucurbitaceae, of the genus: Momordica and is a member of the same family of squash, watermelon, cantaloupes, cucumber, etc. Scientific name: Momordica charantia. Some of the related varieties are balsam pear, cundeamor, la-kwa, etc.

Bitter melon is the immature pod vegetable, popular in many Asian countries. This widely grown as edible pod is, in fact, among the most bitter of all culinary vegetables.

Bitter melon is a temperate /tropical vegetable probably originated in South-East Asia. Like other members of the Cucurbitaceae family, this plant is a fast-growing, trailing or climbing vine with thin stems and tendrils and requires trellis to support the climbing vine.

The pods are characterized by smooth lengthwise ridges and uneven pebbly surface. Depending upon the cultivar type, immature pods are light to dark green and have oblong or oval shapes with a pointed tip at the blossom end. Internally, the flesh is white with rough edged seeds, somewhat similar to ridge gourd seeds. As the fruits begin to mature, they gradually turn yellow or orange.

Health benefits of Bitter gourd

The vegetable is very low in calories, providing just 17 calories per 100g. Nevertheless, its pods are rich in phytonutrients like dietary fiber, minerals, vitamins and anti-oxidants.

Bitter melon notably contains phyto-nutrient, polypeptide-P; a plant insulin known to lower blood sugar levels. In addition, it composes hypoglycemic agent called charantin. Charantin increases glucose uptake and glycogen synthesis in the cells of liver, muscle and adipose tissue. Together, these compounds are thought to be responsible for reduction of blood sugar levels in the treatment of type-2 diabetes.

Fresh pods are an excellent source of folates, contain about 72 µg/100g (Provides 18% of RDA). Folate helps reduce the incidence of neural tube defects in the newborns when taken by mothers during early pregnancy.

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This is the other article:

I'm always looking for natural substances that throw a "monkey wrench" into the peculiar metabolism of cancer cells. It's vital these substances kill cancer cells and leave normal cells untouched. I've told you about some of my discoveries in the past. They include resveratrol, green tea, Seanol, and others. But today I'm going to tell you about another plant that safely starves cancer cells as efficiently as a powerful chemo drug. In fact, it even works on pancreatic cancer cells, which are particularly difficult to kill.

This plant is a common vegetable from Asia called "bitter melon." It is popular among the long-lived population of Okinawa, Japan.

Bitter melon juice diluted to just 5% in water showed remarkable potency in severely damaging all four pancreatic cancer cell lines researchers tested. The bitter melon reduced the viability of two cancer cell lines by 90%, while it knocked off the other two lines by a staggering 98%. And it did so after just 72 hours of treatment!

In the past, I've told you about apoptosis. That's nature's way of dealing with wayward cells. They simply kill themselves. Bitter melon juice induced this programmed cell death along several different pathways. And even better, it also activated a pathway, which shows that it knocks out the cancer cells' metabolism of glucose. In other words, it literally starved them of the sugar they need to survive.


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