Hundreds of years ago, people who used stevia as a sweetener had already realized its functions of lowering blood pressure and blood sugar. Later experimental studies have found that its antihypertensive effect is mainly achieved through three pathways: reducing the influx of extracellular Ca2+, decreasing the reabsorption of Na+, and stimulating the production of the vasodilator prostaglandin. Its hypoglycemic effect is achieved through two pathways: stimulating insulin secretion and the sensitivity of surrounding tissues to insulin to promote the metabolism of glucose in the blood, and inhibiting the absorption of glucose in the intestine and the production of glucose in the liver.
In addition, stevia does not have a blood pressure-lowering effect on people with normal blood pressure, and it only exerts its blood sugar-lowering effect when blood sugar is high. Therefore, normal people can also consume it in large quantities.
Stevia and steviol can reduce the production of pro-inflammatory factors induced by polysaccharides by influencing the expression of cytokines and inhibiting the NF-κB signaling pathway. They can also effectively suppress the generation of TPA, which causes local inflammation and skin cancer, thereby exerting anti-inflammatory effects.
The combined use of stevia and sophora flavescens extract has an inhibitory effect on rotavirus that causes diarrhea in infants and young children. However, the use of either one alone will reduce the anti-diarrheal effect.
