Vitamin Supplements for Diabetes

Posted on July 5, 2008 in Latest News

Diabetes is characterized by higher than normal blood sugar or blood glucose levels in the body. While a certain amount of glucose is necessary for proper cell nutrition, abnormally high glucose levels can be harmful to your health and can lead to serious complications.

Vitamin supplementation can help you fight free radicals that cause complications, help your insulin function and help lower your blood sugar levels, but supplementation must be done safely.

Which Vitamins and Supplements Help Diabetes?

Antioxidants, chromium, vanadium, beta carotene and many others are popping up in the news as good things that people with diabetes should be loading up on. The major antioxidant vitamins are A (also known as beta carotene), C and E.

Vitamin B12: This vitamin regulates the functioning of nerve cells.

Vitamin C: Vitamin C reduces glycosylation and lowers the levels of sorbitol, a sugar that can accumulate and cause serious harm to the eyes and kidneys of diabetics. Vitamin C significantly reduces protein loss through urine and improves glucose tolerance in patients with Type 2 diabetes.

Vitamin D: Vitamin D is essential to maintain adequate levels of insulin in the blood. Vitamin D receptors exist in the pancreas where insulin is produced. Vitamin D is important to increase the insulin activity and therefore effective for diabetes.

Vitamin E: Vitamin E gets lots of good press for its role in helping to prevent heart disease. That’s important for people with diabetes, whose risk of heart disease is two to four times normal. Vitamin E may prevent the destructive vascular damage that might occur in diabetics.

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