By: Elinor Emesz and Igor Klibanov

So you have diabetes, and have to deal with a constant weight on your back. Whether it’s the mental, emotional, or physical aspect that gets to you most, diabetes can be a struggle to live with. You’ve probably tried many things to help you cope with your diabetes, including taking vitamins for blood sugar reduction (or more generally, supplements).

Blood sugar supplements are great for managing your diabetes, but I’m sure you know from experience that the most difficult task that comes with taking supplements is trying to find the right one. There are so many different supplements, but at the same time there are a lot that simply aren’t effective, and the ones that are take a while to find.

Vitamins for blood sugar
Original source: here.

In this article, I will guide you through:

● What is diabetes?

● What are some symptoms of diabetes?

● Benefits of using supplements

● Very effective supplements

● Moderately effective supplements

● Supplements either don’t work at all, or the effect is negligible

● Supplements we don’t know much about

● Risks of using vitamins/supplements for lowering blood sugar

But before we start, you might be wondering who I am and what qualifies me to talk about supplements for people with diabetes. So, I’d like to introduce myself.

Hi. I’m Igor.

I am the proud author of 7 books on exercise and nutrition, including the amazon bestseller “Type 2 Diabetes Reversal Secrets”. I am also a personal trainer, and my team and I have helped clients like Mandy, John, and others reverse their diabetes.

Now that you know more about me, let’s dive in.

What Is Diabetes?

Diabetes, also known as “diabetes mellitus” is a chronic health condition where your body either is unable to produce enough insulin to keep your fasting blood sugar levels normal (type 1 diabetes), or it can’t use the insulin it produces properly, which is more commonly known as insulin resistance (type 2 diabetes). When you have diabetes mellitus, your blood glucose/sugar levels (otherwise known as HbA1C levels) are too high because of the 2 scenarios I just mentioned above.

In order to understand why insulin is important for managing your blood sugar levels, first you should know what it is. Insulin is a hormone that your pancreas produces. It lowers blood sugar when it’s too high. In other words, it helps manage and maintain the levels of blood sugar/glucose in your bloodstream. So if your body can’t produce enough insulin, it means that your body doesn’t have enough blood sugar support, resulting in your blood sugar levels being too high. If your body can’t properly use the insulin it produces, it results in the same thing.

Taking supplements can help improve insulin sensitivity, which would reduce the amount of
insulin resistance in your body, resulting in your body’s ability to use the insulin it produces
better.

What Are Some Symptoms of Type 2 Diabetes?

● Hungrier than usual

● Thirstier than usual

● Blurry vision

● Numb/tingling in hands/feet

● Feel more tired than usual

● Have sores that heal slower than usual

● Frequent colds (more than twice per year)

● Have very dry skin

● Have to pee a lot more than usual (usually at night)

Benefits Of Using Vitamins for Blood Sugar Control

There are many benefits that come with using vitamins/supplements to regulate blood sugar levels. The main 3 benefits are:

1. Compliance: supplements are easy to comply with, especially compared to changing your eating behaviors/habits which is a lot more difficult. Changing the way you’ve been eating for 40, 50, 60 or more years is tough. Taking a pill or powder is easy.

2. Speed: the right supplements work relatively fast (1-3 months)

3. Effectiveness: if you find the right supplements (which I will talk about soon), they work very well and are incredibly effective.

Very Effective Supplements

There are only 4 very effective supplements that I know of that you can use to lower your HbA1C levels. What makes these 4 VERY effective? They lower HbA1C by 1.0% or more.

1. Milk Thistle

In one study, milk thistle lowered HbA1C by 1.40% after 1.5-12 months, which is a very significant effect. It uses 3 main mechanisms to lower your blood sugar:

a. Decrease the amount of fat under the muscle, otherwise known as visceral fat, which produces inflammation. This inflammation can cause insulin resistance. So if the visceral fat is decreased, the less insulin resistance there is. Now don’t get excited. You won’t lose a lot of inches by taking milk thistle, but you’ll make this “angry” fat less angry.

b. Decrease the amount of fat in your liver. Lipolysis is the breakdown of fat in your liver. Basically your body blocks the insulin receptor when there is too much fat in your liver. This means that having too much fat in your body stops insulin from being able to lower your blood sugar. So if the amount of liver fat is decreased, insulin could help lower your blood sugar.

c. Gluconeogenesis – this is the process of converting non-sugar sources to sugar. It’s why some diabetics wake up in the morning with high blood sugar, even though they haven’t eaten anything since dinner last night. Milk thistle helps decrease this.

2. Aloe vera

In one meta-analysis, after 4-14 weeks of use, there was an average reduction of 1.05% in HbA1C. In this meta-analysis, the higher the starting blood sugar, the bigger the reductions.

Aloe vera works to lower your blood sugar using 3 main mechanisms:

a. Decrease the amount of sugar your body/bloodstream absorbs after a meal.

b. Increase the amount of sugar stored in tissues other than your blood, such as your liver and muscle.

c. Decrease the amount of glucose your liver produces

3. Alpha Lipoic Acid (ALA)

In one meta-analysis, alpha lipoic acid lowered HbA1C by 0.35%, while in another meta-analysis, it lowered HbA1C by 1.27%, which is quite a lot.

An example of a mechanism alpha lipoic acid uses is preserving the beta cells, which are the cells in your pancreas that produce insulin. When you have diabetes mellitus, your beta cells tend to wear out, which results in your insulin production decreasing. If the cells are preserved, like what alpha lipoic acid can do, insulin production will continue, allowing the insulin your body makes to continue helping lower your blood sugar levels.

4. Ginger

In one meta-analysis, after 1-3 months, ginger lowered HbA1C by about 1.0%. Ginger uses 3 main mechanisms to lower your blood sugar levels:

a. Inhibits two kinds of enzymes that help with absorption and carbohydrate digestion.

b. Better metabolizes the glucose that is absorbed by the body.

c. Increases a transporter called GLUT-4 that helps cells absorb more glucose.

These supplements are clearly very effective at lowering your blood glucose levels, and should be among your best and first options.

Moderately Effective Supplements

You might be wondering what I think differentiates between very effective and moderately effective supplements. As I wrote above, very effective supplements lower HbA1C by more than 1.0%, while moderately effective supplements lower HbA1C levels by 0.5-0.99%. Now that you know, let’s look at the 4 main ones below:

1. Cinnamon

One meta-analysis found that after taking it for 4-12 weeks, both cinnamon supplements and cinnamon as a food can lower fasting blood glucose by almost 0.5 mmol/l (about 9 mg/dl).

As for how it works to improve blood sugar levels, we don’t really know. However, one study said that a possible mechanism is it raises a hormone known as “adiponectin”. Adiponectin is a hormone that’s released by fat cells that improves your overall insulin sensitivity. This basically means that less insulin would be needed in order for your cells to work/get the message.

2. Berberine

In one meta-analysis, over 8-24 weeks, berberine lowered HbA1C 0.72% more than placebo. In order to lower your blood sugar, it uses 3 common mechanisms:

a. Decrease insulin resistance

b. Increase insulin secretion

c. Reduce inflammation

3. Gymnema sylvestre

In one systematic review, after 15-90 days, the supplement form of gymnema sylvestre lowered HbA1C by approximately 0.6%. The 5 main mechanisms it uses to lower your blood sugar levels are:

a. Increase the secretion of insulin by the pancreas.

b. Promote the regeneration of damaged pancreatic cells known as islet cells.

c. Promote the use of glucose so there ends up being less of it that just hangs around in the blood.

d. Decrease the amount of glucose your small intestine absorbs, which would reduce the amount of glucose that goes into your blood.

e. Reduce sugar cravings.

4. Omega 3 fatty acids

In one systematic review and meta-analysis, omega 3 fatty acids lowered HbA1C by  0.74%. The 2 main mechanisms it uses for lowering your blood glucose levels are:

a. Increases the incorporation of omega 3 fatty acids in cellular membranes using supplementation, membrane fluidity, as well as multiple cell membrane and intracellular receptors.

b. Decreases inflammation.

As you can tell, these supplements work moderately well to lower blood sugar levels.

Supplements That Either Don’t Work, or Have Negligible Effects

There are many supplements that work, but don’t work well enough to be worth using. By this I mean their effect on HbA1C levels are insignificant. The most common supplements with insignificant effects are listed below:

Magnesium

In one meta-analysis, magnesium supplements lowered blood sugar only 0.018% better than the placebo. This is next to nothing and is simply not worth taking for blood sugar reduction.

That’s not to say that it’s totally worthless. Magnesium has many other uses besides lowering blood sugar. It’s very effective for insomnia, constipation, high blood pressure, and others. But what it doesn’t do is lower elevated blood sugar levels.

Chromium

Based on my research, chromium doesn’t usually work, and when it does, it doesn’t cause a significant change. The biggest effect it had on HbA1C that I found was in one meta-analysis, where it lowered HbA1C only 0.33% more than the placebo.

Probiotics

In most meta-analyses, probiotic supplements didn’t have any effect on HbA1C. However, in one meta-analysis, the probiotics lowered HbA1C by 0.24%. This is clearly a very minor and insignificant effect compared to the supplements I mentioned closer to the beginning of the article.

Again, it doesn’t mean that probiotics are worthless. They help with digestion, depression, sometimes even skin quality. But what they don’t do is lower blood sugar.

Ginseng

According to one meta-analysis, ginseng is not effective when it comes to lowering blood sugar levels. This is the case for many different types of ginseng such as Panax, American, and Korean ginseng.

There are, however, other applications to ginseng besides lower blood sugar levels, like better stress management, perhaps an effect on cortisol, and other applications.

Vitamin C

According to one meta-analysis, vitamin C reduced glucose levels by 0.02%, which is next to nothing and not worth the trouble of taking the vitamin for the purposes of blood sugar management.

There are, however other purposes to vitamin C, like having strong blood vessels, it’s good for the heart, and important for collagen production. It just doesn’t lower blood sugar levels.

Vitamin D

Vitamin D supplements only work if you have a vitamin D deficiency. In one meta analysis, vitamin D supplementation lowered HbA1C by 0.39% in those who were deficient. In another meta analysis, vitamin D only reduced HbA1C levels by 0.32%.

Vitamin D is only beneficial when a deficiency is present. No deficiency, no benefit.

Vitamin E

In one meta-analysis, the average difference between the HbA1C levels in those that received vitamin E versus those that didn’t was 0.58%, which is not much.

But it does have other applications. It’s often used for skin, for brain health, and other reasons. It’s just not super effective at lowering blood sugar.

Bitter melon

One meta-analysis found that compared to no treatment, bitter melon did not have a significant effect on HbA1c levels (lowered them by only 0.13%).

Supplements We Don’t Know Much About

There are many supplements that are lacking research, therefore resulting in us not knowing how well they really work, or if they even work at all.

We’ll be looking at 2 supplements, the first one being zinc. I could only find one study that looked at how zinc could help prevent diabetes, and it concluded that there is no evidence that taking zinc helps prevent diabetes. And there is no research on the use of zinc for the treatment of diabetes mellitus in humans.

That doesn’t mean that zinc is worthless. It just means that we don’t know. But what we do know is that zinc has other applications, like its positive effects on depression, mild effects on acne, illness, etc.

The second and last supplement we’ll look at is banaba leaf. In one study, a mixture of ginseng roots, mulberry leaf water extract, and banaba leaf water extract was given. In comparison to the placebo, the study concluded that this mixture didn’t make a significant difference in fasting blood sugar levels. We should keep in mind however, that this is a mixture of supplements, not a banaba leaf on its own.

As I made obvious in the subheading, we don’t know much about these 2 supplements for the purposes of fasting blood sugar level reductions. There aren’t enough clinical trials that exist in order for us to know whether or not they work. So for now, we don’t know.

Risks Of Using Vitamins/Supplements For Lowering Blood Sugar

A lot of people turn to supplements because they figure they’re natural. Let me bust 2 myths for you right here and now:

  1. Not all supplements are natural. Some are synthetic. For instance, vitamin C is not found in nature by itself as ascorbic acid. True vitamin C is a combination of ascorbic acid, hesperidin and bioflavonoids.
  2. Just because it’s natural doesn’t mean it’s healthy or safe. And just because it’s synthetic doesn’t mean it’s bad for you. So there are definite risks to taking supplements… even those that are “natural.”

When it comes to increased risks that come with taking vitamins/supplements to help improve your glycemic control (control over your blood sugar levels), there are 2 main ones.

1. The supplement/vitamin might work too well and drop your blood sugar levels dangerously low. Low blood sugar can result in confusion, fatigue, dizziness, fainting, and in extreme cases, coma.

2. Blood thinning, meaning the supplement would thin your blood, and when you don’t need this it can negatively affect your immune system. If you cut yourself (whether shaving or a paper cut, etc.), you could end up bleeding for too long, and losing some iron in the process.

Ultimately, before you decide to take a supplement/vitamin, speak to a pharmacist to get personal advice.