Does anyone take any vitamin supplements primarily because of their diabetes?
I’ve heard that when blood sugars are high vitamins and minerals can be leached out, and it’s sad to say but my daughter has high blood sugar quite often. Mainly because of forgetting to bolus, or being off her pump too long because of swimming.
I’m actually wondering if I should take her to the dr and have things like her vitamin d & b , magnesium and levels checked? It’s not like I have any concerns right now but I obviously do worry about her health in the long run and want to be as proactive as possible.
We take Vitamin D from October through April. (More or less). Either 1000 or 2000 units per day. Vitamin D bloodwork during winter and summer shows this is effective. Summer (apparently) provides enough natural D via sunlight to not require the supplement. (For us - each person is quite different - obviously)
Although this is from the GI doc, not the Endo doc.
I have nothing against supplements and obviously we use the D but my preference is to pick foods that contain the supplement you are interested in. I just don’t believe that “science” has caught up with “nature” in many aspects. I think it quite likely that the human body is likely able to more easily absorb the nutrients from a good food source than from a pill.
But that only goes so far. We do use the “Vit D” pill during winter.
I’ve had type 1 diabetes for 51 years, and for the past 45 years I have been taking mega-doses of vitamins in the hopes of slowing the complications. Logically, since the process by which hyperglycemia causes complications is inflammation, and since many vitamins, such as vitamin E, are anti-inflammatories, vitamins should help. I don’t know whether my long survival with the disease has anything to do with the vitamins, since you can’t prove a cause by looking at just one case, but people do say I look a good 20 years younger than I actually am.
I am prescribed vit D for deficiency, but almost everybody in my climate is vit D deficient. It has nothing to do with diabetes. If I go high for an extended period and don’t feel well, I might drink a pedialyte (with bolus for sugar) or a powerade zero.
The best way to be proactive about diabetes complications is to manage blood sugar. There is no supplement in the world that can replace that. If she is a swimmer, she might need to change to an Omnipod pump so that she can wear it while swimming. Remember that your medics want to know what supplements you take when they ask about medications. They count, so if you cannot list them, in an emergency, off the top of your head, then you might be taking too many. Video on Vitamin supplements & safety
I don’t take any vitamin supplements unless I do a survey of the published scientific literature on them first, for which I consult the NIH website PubMed. The problem with using supplements is that there are enormous forces opposed to them for financial and social power reasons, so they often blithely proclaim that there is no evidence of their doing any good, or that they are dangerous, when the actual literature in medical journals says something quite different. The medical profession doesn’t like supplements because they rob them of power, since you can get them without a prescription, they are not generally in the doctor’s area of expertise, and you can treat yourself rather than going through them. Big Pharma doesn’t like them either, because they don’t want anyone treating themselves with anything except their own hyper-expensive prescription products.
Since there is an enormous disconcordance between blood sugar control and the development of diabetic complications, with some people having very good control nonetheless having very serious complications, and others with careless control escaping the consequences, obviously it is desirable to have some greater insurance against them than just relying on strict control, which accounts for 4 to 6% of type 1 diabetic deaths from hypoglycemia, so it is not a very safe way to avoid complications in any case. Supplements should be just that, a supplement.
I live in San Diego so sun is not an issue for me but I still come up with a D deficiency. So the only thing I take is some D supplements. Never thought about vitamins leaching out. But it could be on list of questions to ask doctor next time. Good luck! I always feel the less pills the better but also know and understand if you need it, you should take it. And if that means 8 pills, 8 pills it is.
