By: Emily Ing and Igor Klibanov
Being diagnosed with diabetes or pre-diabetes is never fun. But unfortunately, you or a loved one has been diagnosed and now youre frantically trying to find ways to try and turn things around as soon as possible.
So you searched for supplements to improve prediabetes. Well youve come to the right place. In this article well cover a few topics:
- Why supplements work
- The basics of helping reverse diabetes
- 6 most effective supplements to reverse prediabetes
- Supplements that dont work
Hopefully all of these things will be helpful for you.
And if youre wondering what qualifies this guy to write about dietary supplements for diabetes?, allow me to introduce myself (where are my manners? 😉
- Im the author of the Amazon bestseller Type 2 Diabetes Reversal Secrets along with 6 other books about health, nutrition, and fitness
- Im a personal trainer and also have a background in kinesiology and health science
- Ive worked with real people who are diabetic and pre-diabetics and have helped them reverse it. Check out the success stories of people like Mandy, John, and others.
Now without further ado, lets hop into the article.
Why Supplements
When people talk about reversing diabetes, the first thing that comes up always seems to be a change in diet. But lets be real, changing your diet is really hard. By the time you’re 40, 50, 60, etc. you would be trying to break decades worth of eating habits. And even though you probably should break those habits and change your diet, the reality is that its really hard to.
But changing your diet isnt the only thing that can help reverse diabetes. Something else that has been proven to be fast, effective, and safe to use are supplements!
Thats right, over decades of research, supplements have been proven to actually be effective. And not only that, but theyve also been proven to be safe to use and work fairly quickly.
So dont rule out supplements just yet, they might become your best friend when it comes to reversing diabetes. Think of it this way, instead of trying over and over again with trying to break decades worth of eating habits to change your diet, you can just take a supplement in just a few seconds.
Now before we continue with the article, here’s the obligatory disclaimer: we are not medical professionals and these are all from a fitness point of view. So please talk to a pharmacist before continuing with any supplements. Theyre going to be able to give you more personalized advice than I can offer in this article. Additionally, if youre on medications, they can interact with supplements. Sometimes positively, and sometimes negatively. A pharmacist would be able to tell you about these interactions.
The Basics
Lets say supplements arent your thing or maybe you want to combine supplements with some other strategies for reversing diabetes. Well, for that here are 3 alternatives that could help reverse diabetes as well maybe not as fast or effective but they can help.
Improve Your Sleep & Get Tested for Sleep Apnea
Have you been noticing you just havent been getting good rest? Or have you noticed how you always seem to be tired during the day, even after getting 8 hours of sleep? Well you might have sleep apnea.
What is sleep apnea? Its a sleep disorder where people have so much trouble breathing at night that they stop breathing for a split-second which causes them to wake up and catch their breath, just to fall back asleep right after.
People can end up waking up hundreds of times in an hour because of sleep apnea. But it happens so much that when they wake up, a lot of the time they dont remember and so they think they got 8 hours of sleep. In reality, because of all the time they wake up they only sleep the equivalent of 5-6 hours. So when people with sleep apnea go through their day, they end up feeling really tired even though they think they got 8 hours of sleep.
People with diabetes are a lot more likely to have sleep apnea compared to non-diabetics. And a big part of that has to do with insulin levels. See, when diabetics get treatment for sleep apnea theyre helping treat insulin resistance which allows their insulin levels to really drop. On page 117 of my book, I even reference a study where simply by treating sleep apnea, insulin levels dropped by 24% in 6 months.
I talk a lot about the effects of sleep apnea in chapter 9 of my book. So if you want to learn more about how sleep apnea and the quality of sleep you get can affect diabetes, check out my book here. Or if you want to get some quick tips on sleep, check out these articles I wrote in the past:
Exercise
Its no surprise exercise can really help with diabetes. It helps regulate and improve your blood sugar and so much more. Whether it’s some quick cardio or a full blown strength training session, exercise has a lot of research behind it to help with diabetes.
I talk about this a lot more in chapter 6 of my book Type 2 Diabetes Reversal Secrets. But for some quick tips and an overall outline on the basics of how exercise can help, check out my article Exercise for Diabetes.
Nutrition
Now for the big one, nutrition. This is what everybody is talking about when they say to change your diet. But thats so general, how can you change your diet to make a difference with diabetes?
Lets start with breaking it down pretty simple, whats the main component of diabetes? High blood sugar. So how would you improve diabetes? Lowering your blood sugar. Now that we have a goal, lets take a look at a few ways to help achieve it.
FIrst off, more fiber. I talk about this a lot more in chapter 4 of my book, but for now here are the basics. Pre-diabetics need a lore more fiber in their diet compared to non-diabetics. See, non-diabetics need around 24-38 grams of fiber per day, pre-diabetics and diabetics need over 40 grams per day.
This amount is pretty difficult to reach each day. Therefore, a great solution for hitting the daily intake of fiber is Klinio fiber supplements. They are made out off natural fiber complexes and seem to also aid in weight loss.
Outside of that, here are some of the best sources of fiber in everyday foods:
- Flax seeds
- Chia seeds
- Hemp seeds
- Beans
- Peas
- Lentils
- Raspberries
- Blackberries
- Blueberries
- Buckwheat
- Quinoa
- Amaranth
- Whole grain bread/pasta (not to be confused with whole wheat or multigrain – theyre not the same thing)
A pretty good rule of thumb to follow is that most berries and seeds have a fairly high fiber content.
Aside from increasing your fiber intake, its best to try to limit or avoid alcohol, if possible. You may not know, but alcohol itself is a type of sugar. So naturally it raises blood sugar very quickly. But not only does it raise blood sugar quickly it also damages the liver. And since your liver is a big player when it comes to managing blood sugar, alcohol is a double whammy for blood glucose.
Finally, carbs. They have a bad reputation, especially with all the questionable health advice on the internet. They definitely play a role since they break down into sugars which raise your blood sugar. But theyre overrated. They arent going to be the magical solution to reversing your diabetes if you take them out of your diet. And they arent going to be detrimental to your progress if you keep them in your diet. The king of diabetes control is total calories. The queen is total fiber. And way down the priority list is carbs. Do low carb diets help? Yes, but we have to distinguish between whether low carbs help because carbs were the problem to begin with, or because when you lower your carbs, you also inadvertently lower your calories.
The takeaway from this whole change your diet mentality is no matter what, itll take time for you to break your eating habits, and establish a healthy diet. And even in the end, its not entirely necessary to change your diet or to lose weight as a diabetic or pre-diabetic. Yes, it can help. But its not the end all be all of reversing diabetes. You can reverse your diabetes without losing weight.
Weight loss is a lengthy and time consuming process as is changing your diet. So if you do want to take steps towards that, the much faster and easier way to approach things is regulating and normalizing your fasting blood sugar.
Once again, I talk a lot more in detail about all of these topics in my book Type 2 Diabetes Reversal Secrets, so check it out if you want to learn more.
6 Most Effective Supplements to Reverse Prediabetes
Now for the part youve all been waiting for. The supplements that are most effective when it comes to reversing predibaetes. What makes them the most effective? Well these are the only 6 supplements as of right now that are proven to lower HbA1c by 1.0% or more. So, here are the top 6 most effective supplements (in no particular order):
- Aloe Vera
- Milk THistle
- Gymnema Sylvestre
- Ginger
- Alpha Lipoic Acid (ALA)
- Berberine
Now lets take a closer look at each one.
Milk Thistle
Milk thistle is a plant. Its normally purple and looks a little spikey. But normally, itll be sold in extract, powder, or tea form.
The reason milk thistle works so well isnt entirely understood by scientists. It might be because of the silymarin (pronounced sil – y – mar – in), which is the active component of milk thistle. Silymarin has been thought to play a role in improving insulin resistance a few different ways with the main one being its ability to improve liver function. And as we mentioned earlier, the liver helps with breaking down sugars and thus helps with lowering/regulating blood glucose levels.
Milk thistle doesnt have an established toxic dose. But from what we read, doses can range anywhere from 200 mg/day to 700 mg/day, three times a day for 24 weeks all without negative side effects.
Aloe Vera
Aloe has a lot of good properties. Its well-known for being good for your skin, for your digestion and more.
Some minerals worth noting are chromium, magnesium, manganese and zinc, which all help improve the effectiveness of insulin so that your body can use the sugars in your blood rather than having them float around, creating high fasting blood sugar. Even though these minerals are worth noting, they arent the magical answer or only minerals that can help or even are the most helpful. Ill go into that a little later .
There isnt an established toxic dose for aloe, at least according to the studies that have been done. From what weve seen in the studies, doses for aloe vera powders can range anywhere from 100 mg/day to 1000 mg/day, not taken all at once though. For aloe juice it can range from 15 ml/day to 150 ml/day without any harmful or toxic effects.
Gymnema Sylvestre
Gymnema Sylvestre (pronounced Juhm – Nee – Muh – Sil – Veh – Struh) is a woody vine plant that works in a few different ways.
Firstly, the active components in gymnema sylvestre are gymnemic acids, which help promote insulin production from the pancreas which helps reduce and regulate blood glucose levels and improve insulin sensitivity.
Secondly, gymnemic acids help aid damaged or poorly functioning cells in the pancreas, allowing it to work better (ie make insulin). Which will also help regulate fasting blood sugar levels and improve insulin sensitivity.
Finally, because of the gymnemic acids are similar in shape to sugar molecules, you may have fewer sugar cravings since it thinks it has something thats close enough to sugar.
The studies we took a look at for our articles used dosages ranging from 400mg to 10g orally in one of three forms: powder, capsule, or tablet daily.
Alpha Lipoic Acid (ALA)
Alpha Lipoic Acid (ALA) is a compound thats made naturally in animals.
One of the ways ALA works to improve fasting blood sugar levels is by protecting cells in your pancreas. The beta cells secrete insulin, when theyre damaged, of course the opposite happens – insulin secretion suffers.
There have been studies done to find the safe levels of ALA and they reported that dosages ranging from 100 mg/day to 2700 mg/day can be taken without any negative or toxic side effects.
Ginger
There are a few things that ginger does to help lower fasting blood sugar levels. Three of the main ones include:
- Reduced carb digestion. This regulates and in turn reduces how many carbs enter the bloodstream. And since carbs turn into sugar, it reduces how much sugar enters the bloodstream.
- Improving metabolism and digestion time. Similar to the first point, this helps with controlling blood sugar and how much enters the bloodstream.
- Improving insulin sensitivity. By improving insulin sensitivity, you require less insulin to be produced and needed to bring down fasting blood sugar levels.
The studies we took a look at used dosages ranging from 1 gram per day to 3 grams per day over a few months. But there havent been any studies showing there to be toxic or dangerous levels of ginger.
Berberine
Finally we have berberine (pronounced bur – br – een). What is berberine? Well just like almost all the other items on this list, its a plant. Its red in colour and almost looks like a goji berry.
There are 4 main ways that berberine with lowering blood sugar levels:
- Because it has an enzyme called glucokinase (pronounced gloo – kow – kuh – nays), berberine helps the body keep track of its blood glucose levels.
- They help improve pancreatic beta cells so they can produce insulin
- They help decrease the amount of non-sugars, like protein, to not get turned into sugar (this is a process called gluconeogenesis).
- Berberine has an anti-inflammatory effect which helps with insulin resistance as well.
There were no studies we looked at that showed any toxic doses of berberine. But researchers did find that it tends to work better when taken for extended periods of time, more than 3 months to be exact. Typical dosages are 500 mg, 2-3 times per day.
Supplements That Dont Work
There are a lot of articles out there that talk about supplements that are supposedly going to help reverse diabetes. Three of the most commonly mentioned supplements are:
- Cinnamon
- Magnesium
- Chromium
But the thing is they dont actually work all that well, if at all. Yes, they can lower your blood sugar by a little, but not much compared to the 6 supplements mentioned earlier. Whereas the supplements that I mentioned earlier lower HbA1C by at least 1.0%, these 3 typically lower it by less than 1.0%. Not to say that they dont have other benefits outside of blood glucose control (for instance, magnesium is great for sleep, constipation, heart health, etc.), but for the specific purpose of improving blood sugar, they either dont work at all, or dont work well.
I list other supplements that are either unproven, or ineffective for prediabetics in chapter 5 of my book Type 2 Diabetes Reversal Secrets.
Its beyond the scope of this article, but briefly, heres the list:
- Carnitine
- Bitter melon
- Ginseng
- Magnesium
- Chromium
- Vanadium
- Biotin
- Inositol
- Zinc
- Carnosine
- Probiotics
And if you’re wondering about Ensure drinks and Glucerna shakes, I’ve written about them in their respective articles.
Conclusion
Even though we only talked about 6, there are a ton of other supplements out there that can help reverse prediabetes, and reduce blood sugar spikes. Many, if not all of them including the ones we talked about have been researched in one way or another. The reason we chose these 6 to talk about specifically was just because they have been proven to lower HbA1c by 1% or more, whereas other ones will lower it, just not as much or not at all.
But once again, please talk with a pharmacist before proceeding with using any supplements. Everything that has been said in this article has been researched but its definitely still better to talk to a pharmacist who can go more in depth about the risks that any supplements may cause for you.
As weve been saying throughout this entire article, if you want to know more reversal secrets for diabetes check out my book Type 2 Diabetes Reversal Secrets on amazon.
