Sanjeev Sripathi writes:

I came across a firm that seems to be offering a miracle product – https://letsmoderate.com/products/sugar-slayer . Their claim is that ingesting it hammers your post-meal blood sugar spike down by 40%, and they have multiple studies to back it up: https://letsmoderate.com/pages/science

What stood out to me as weird:

(1) These three articles were published at different times by different people but follow the same format for the abstract and text and arrive at nearly the same very large effect size for the same product (the one being sold): https://www.mdpi.com/2072-6643/16/14/2237 , https://link.springer.com/article/10.1186/s41110-024-00275-6 , https://link.springer.com/article/10.1186/s41110-024-00294-3

(2) The other listed articles seem to have been fetched by doing a search for ‘mulberry extract’, which is the critical active ingredient. Whatever I can access does show a notable attenuation on blood glucose and studies exist all the way from 2007 to 2022, thought the impact varies a lot.

(3) These 3 studies are eerily similar to the first 3 I’ve mentioned here: https://www.liebertpub.com/doi/10.1089/jmf.2014.3160, https://link.springer.com/article/10.1186/s12986-021-00571-2, https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0172239#authcontrib . But they’re from 2007, 2015 and 2024, across 3 sets of researchers, which just seems very odd. Is this how everyone is meant to name their papers? i.e. is there a social pressure sitting outside these groups pushing them into common convention?

I’m sure you’d identify more elements if you took a look at it. I’m just unclear if I’m jumping at shadows.

I was curious so I clicked on the link. From the letsmoderate site:

Here are the titles of the first three articles listed in the above email:

A Novel Nutraceutical Supplement Lowers Postprandial Glucose and Insulin Levels upon a Carbohydrate-Rich Meal or Sucrose Drink Intake in Healthy Individuals—A Randomized, Placebo-Controlled, Crossover Feeding Study

A novel nutritional supplement reduces postprandial glucose response in healthy individuals in a randomised, placebo-controlled, crossover clinical study

A ready-to-mix nutraceutical supplement (GLUBLOC) lowers postprandial blood glucose levels in healthy individuals — A randomised, placebo-controlled, crossover study

All the above authors are from India but with no overlap in the author list.

And here are the titles for the other three:

Mulberry Leaf Extract Improves Postprandial Glucose Response in Prediabetic Subjects: A Randomized, Double-Blind Placebo-Controlled Trial

Mulberry leaf extract improves glycaemic response and insulaemic response to sucrose in healthy subjects: results of a randomized, double blind, placebo-controlled study

Mulberry-extract improves glucose tolerance and decreases insulin concentrations in normoglycaemic adults: Results of a randomised double-blind placebo-controlled study

The first one’s from Korea, and the second and third are from England, with some overlap in the author list.

I agree that it’s weird that the papers have nearly identical trials. But I don’t know how things go in the medical literature. Maybe this is standard practice?

I’m not planning to fork over 799 rupees for 30 tablets of Sugar Slayer. One of the article says, “Alkaloid- and polyphenol-rich white mulberry leaf and apple peel extracts have been shown to have potential glucose-lowering effects, benefitting the control of postprandial blood glucose levels,” so maybe I’ll just eat an apple.