Diabetes Depletes Vital Vitamins and Minerals

The key to the treating diabetes is twofold. First, you need to control blood sugar levels. Equally important, you must prevent diabetes complications.

While conventional physicians do attempt to stave off diabetes complications by helping patients maintain blood sugar levels that are in the normal range, they ignore the solid scientific research that supports the aggressive use of specific nutritional supplements for protection against the ravages of diabetes. This is one of the most obvious and inexcusable blind spots of conventional medicine.

Diabetes is a nutritionally wasting disease. Massive amounts of nutrients are lost as the kidneys rid the body of excess glucose by increasing urination, so the first step is replacement of these lost nutrients.

Among the most significant losses are the B-complex vitamins, and many people with diabetes have suboptimal cellular levels of these vital nutrients. Vitamins B6, B12, and biotin improve insulin sensitivity and also help prevent diabetes complications, particularly neuropathy, which is present in almost half of all people with diabetes. Supplementation is imperative, with recommended doses of:

• 75 mg vitamin B6,
• 150 mcg of B12,
• 300 mcg of biotin, and
• an array of other B-complex vitamins.

People with diabetes also tend to have low levels of magnesium, and those with the lowest levels are most likely to have diabetic retinopathy and other eye problems. For this reason, anyone trying to manage diabetes should also take a minimum of 500 mg of magnesium per day, balanced with 1,000 mg of calcium.