"Ingesting an indigenous Israeli aromatic shrub called Chiliadenus iphionoides (commonly, 'sharp varthemia' or 'Goldilocks') could improve insulin secretion & glucose absorption in people with diabetes, according to plant biologist Jonathan Gorelick, scientific director of the Judea Regional Research & Development Center in Israel. 
The center’s efforts to isolate plant’s active compounds & to assure these compounds are present when plant is grown in the greenhouse rather than in the wild is topic of Gorelick’s presentation today at the 25th Judea & Samaria Research Studies Conference at Ariel University.  'This is a plant that only grows in Israel, Jordan & the Sinai & has been used traditionally by Bedouins for controlling diabetes,' Gorelick tells ISRAEL21c.
'I’ve been screening different Israeli plants for diabetes & this is 1 of the best candidates.' 
In a study published in the Journal of Ethnopharmacology in October 2011, Gorelick & his team describe how they tested the effects of the plant on a particular Negev rodent with a nutritionally induced model of diabetes.
When the animals were given an oral glucose tolerance test, blood-glucose levels returned immediately to normal levels only in the ones that had been fed sharp varthemia before the test."