Living with diabetes

Living with diabetes means that you are probably much more conscious than other people about the importance of a varied diet, and better educated about the effect that nutrition has on your blood glucose levels and your overall health. Many health care professionals think that as long as you are eating a proper diet there is no need for additional vitamins or minerals. But even people who eat a balanced diet may benefit from supplements .. because we can’t always eat the way we should. Micro nutrients is the term used to describe the various vitamins and minerals that our bodies need in small quantities to perform very specific functions. Micronutrients can help control our rate of metabolism, which in part means how effectively your body converts sugars and other carbohydrates from fruits and vegetables into energy.

Studies have investigated a variety of these micro nutrients in an effort to determine how helpful these might be in controlling or preventing diabetes, but results are inconclusive and more research is necessary. If your physician knows for certain that you have a deficiency in a particular vitamin or mineral, then additional supplements might be beneficial – but it is often difficult to determine the deficiency. Studies have looked at such things as vitamin B deficiency) which may be a factor in poor glucose tolerance), vitamin E deficiency and the risk of developing diabetes, and chromium and its role in reducing blood glucose.

One interesting thing about vitamins and minerals is that when taken individually, they often don’t work as well as when they are taken in combination with others- a team effort, so to speak. This makes once-daily multivitamins a good solution, since they usually contain 100% of the recommended daily allowance of each. As a person living with diabetes, nutritional considerations are very important. Zinc, vitamins and trace minerals are helping to diabetes.

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