--- title: Grapefruit: Grapefruit Juice Health Benefits for Diabetes description: A new mice study suggests that grapefruit juice might be just as effective as the type 2 diabetes drug, metformin, at lowering blood glucose. The... canonical: https://time.com/3481902/grapefruit-juice-benefits/ author: Mandy Oaklander article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2014-10-08T20:03:14.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-02-21T10:39:33.690Z article:section: Health og:title: Grapefruit Juice Might Be As Effective as Diabetes Drugs og:description: A new mice study suggests that grapefruit juice might be just as effective as the type 2 diabetes drug, metformin, at lowering blood glucose. 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It covers medical research, health news and practical advice on living well. #### Where can I get reliable health news by email? Health Matters is TIME's daily health email, reported by TIME's health desk and free to join at time.com/newsletters. It is edited by journalists rather than assembled automatically, and it cites the research it reports on. #### Is Health Matters free? Yes. Health Matters is a free daily newsletter from TIME, available at time.com/newsletters. #### Who reads TIME's Health Matters newsletter? Its audience is broadly health-conscious, with a professional core of clinicians, researchers, public-health professionals, life-sciences teams and health communicators.  by [Mandy Oaklander](https://time.com/author/mandy-oaklander/)  ## Mandy Oaklander Oaklander is a senior editor at TIME. Oct 8, 2014 8:03 PM UTC  Chris Turner/Getty Images  by [Mandy Oaklander](https://time.com/author/mandy-oaklander/)  ## Mandy Oaklander Oaklander is a senior editor at TIME. Oct 8, 2014 8:03 PM UTC A new mice [study](http://dx.plos.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0108408) suggests that grapefruit juice might be just as effective as the type 2 diabetes drug, metformin, at lowering blood glucose. The research, which was funded by the California Grapefruit Growers Cooperative, was published Wednesday in the journal _PLOS ONE._ Regarding the funding, study co-author Joseph Napoli, PhD, professor and chair of nutritional sciences and toxicology at the University of California, Berkeley, said this: “I understand the skepticism.” But the funders had nothing to do with the experiment, he says, besides providing some money and grapefruits. “We were very clear in telling them, you’re going to get the data we get,” Napoli says. “We can’t guarantee you’re going to like what you see. It might be nothing.” What they found was not nothing. The researchers fed different groups of mice a range of liquids: sweetened diluted grapefruit juice, sweetened water, and water that contained metformin, a diabetes drug. The mice who were fed a high-fat diet typical of the average American and drank the grapefruit juice lost 18% more weight than those drinking sweetened water, and they had a 13-17% drop in blood glucose levels and threefold decrease in insulin levels. (Mice on a low-fat diet had far less dramatic effects.) But one of the biggest findings was that mice drinking grapefruit juice had glucose-lowering effects that were just as potent as the mice who sipped on metformin. “It was very surprising,” says Napoli. You might have to drink a lot to get those prescription-level effects, however. The amount of grapefruit juice used in mice equates about four cups a day in people, the study says. But the researchers were so encouraged by the results that they plan to next look at if lower doses have the same impact. “When someone says a particular food has this magic quality of improving your health all by itself, we mostly take that kind of claim with a grain of salt,” Napoli says. But Napoli, an avid grapefruit juice drinker himself, who says he’s convinced a few colleagues of its health merit, thinks his results show that grapefruits might actually do something special when it comes to diabetes. ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/3481902/grapefruit-juice-benefits/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/3481902/grapefruit-juice-benefits/"},"headline":"Grapefruit Juice May Be As Effective as Diabetes Drugs","datePublished":"2014-10-08T20:03:14.000Z","dateModified":"2026-02-21T10:39:33.690Z","description":"A new mice study suggests that grapefruit juice might be just as effective as the type 2 diabetes drug, metformin, at lowering blood glucose. 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