Vitamins, an aid against diabetes

Although today it is possible to control diabetic disease very effectively, the risk of complications is never eliminated. Some vitamins could offer significant help.

Thanks to new oral hypoglycemic agents, the latest generation of insulins and increasingly precise, reliable and easy-to-use blood glucose delivery and measurement devices, diabetics now have the opportunity to effectively control the disease for many years.

However, not even the best antidiabetic therapy is able to eliminate the risk of complications affecting different organs, which tend to arise about a decade after the onset of the disease:

Several studies conducted in recent years indicate that certain vitamins could offer an important additional means of preventing long-term damage caused by diabetes, significantly improving patients’ quality of life. And reducing mortality associated with cardiovascular diseases (up to four times more frequent in diabetics than in healthy subjects).

B1 to protect the heart

A valuable ally for diabetic heart health seems to be vitamin B1. According to the results of a study conducted at the British University of Bristol, this vitamin would in fact be able to prevent cardiovascular complications in patients suffering from both type 1 diabetes (the one present since childhood) and type 2 diabetes (which tends to appear after the age of 40 for reasons related mostly to excess weight and sedentary lifestyle).

Starting from the evidence of a previous study conducted by their colleagues at the University of Warwick (UK), which had shown in patients with type 1 and type 2 diabetes percentages of vitamin B1 below normal (up to 75% less), the researchers administered a synthetic derivative of vitamin B1, called benfotiamine, to a sample of healthy guinea pigs or with early-stage diabetes.

Regular treatment with benfotiamine from disease onset has been shown to slow and prevent the development of heart damage and improve survival and recovery rates after heart attack in mice with type 1 diabetes (as well as in non-diabetic animals). On this basis, vitamin B1 supplementation could constitute a new means for cardiovascular prevention in diabetic patients.

Vitamin D, useful beyond the bone

For at least a couple of decades, evidence has been accumulating that emphasizes the importance of maintaining adequate levels of vitamin D for the health and well-being not only of the bones, but of the whole organism.

This applies both to healthy people who, thanks to vitamin D, will see a reduced risk of developing (in addition to osteoporosis) metabolic, cardiovascular, tumor and autoimmune diseases, and for subjects already suffering from specific diseases. And for individuals of any age.

To confirm this thesis on the cardiovascular and metabolic front is, among others, a study conducted at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health in Baltimore (United States) which showed that low levels of vitamin D in adolescence are associated with higher blood pressure values and higher concentrations of glucose in the blood. Two known risk factors for heart attack, cerebral stroke and development of type 2 diabetes in adulthood.

In particular, compared to boys who had normal vitamin D levels (i.e., above 26 ng / ml), those who were deficient (less than 15 ng / ml) showed a four times greater risk of incurring metabolic syndrome, a clinical condition characterized by the simultaneous presence of overweight or obesity, cholesterol and / or triglyceride levels and high blood sugar, as well as more than double the likelihood of having high blood glucose concentrations and above-average blood pressure.

Ensuring a sufficient intake of vitamin D with the diet (fish liver oil, eggs and dairy products) or in the context of supplements agreed with the doctor, and through moderate exposure to the sun (10-15 minutes a day is enough at times not at risk for skin health) can therefore represent a simple and effective strategy to improve the prevention of type 2 diabetes and its main complications.

Antioxidants for memory

More vitamins, in this case antioxidants, also for the brain of both healthy people and, above all, those suffering from diabetes. Because this disease tends to expose brain nerve cells (and more generally the whole organism) to additional oxidative stress due to the inefficient use of sugars and the intense production of free radicals that follows.

According to research conducted at the University of Toronto, vitamins C and E are particularly effective in protecting intellectual and memorization abilities in diabetics.

By giving 1 gram of the first and 800 IU of the second to healthy or diabetic people (average age 63 years) together with a nutritiously rich meal (50 g of fat, 63 g of carbohydrates and 25 g of protein), it was seen that the vitamin cocktail was able to prevent the decline in cognitive performance that tends to occur in those suffering from diabetes (but not in those who are healthy) during the hours immediately following an identical meal, but without vitamin C and E supplementation.

In practice, the simple addition of high-dose antioxidants was able to make the effects of the lavish meal on the diabetic brain comparable to those of a harmless glass of water.

This is no small feat in terms of preventive benefits, especially considering that cognitive decline associated with aging or specific diseases is one of the biggest health concerns globally and that, at the moment, we do not have effective weapons available to counteract it.