Diabetes – a metabolic disease that causes high blood sugar – affects over 1 in 10 Americans, but it can be managed with the right medicine and treatment.
While many diabetics lead normal lives, they need to monitor their sugar levels to avoid serious health complications, such as nerve damage.
However, supposedly healthy supplements could be causing more harm than good for diabetics due to their sugar content, so we want to help you find the best multivitamins for diabetics.
Whether you’re trying to meet the recommended daily intake of vitamins and minerals or remedy complications from your diabetes, multivitamin supplements have a wide range of benefits. However, many supplements (especially gummy supplements) contain added sugars that can cause more harm than good for diabetics.
Certain brands of supplements contain as much as 2 grams of sugar in each dose, making them as sugary as candy and equally risky for diabetics. Fortunately, growing numbers of supplement brands are creating sugar-free and diabetic-friendly products with plenty of essential nutrients that won’t spike your blood sugar, and we can help you find the best multivitamins for diabetics with this handy guide.
How Can Multivitamins Help Diabetics?
Certain vitamins and minerals may be beneficial depending on the severity of your diabetes and the type of treatment you use to control it. These nutrients may address certain symptoms of diabetes or reduce complications, but as with any supplement aimed at tackling disease, you should continue taking prescription meds and ask a doctor if they are right for you.
Because diabetes tends to drain nutrients – from your body trying to ‘wash’ out excess sugar from your blood – diabetics are more likely to be deficient in water-soluble vitamins and minerals. Furthermore, deficiencies in these vitamins makes it harder for your body to manage blood sugar, creating a vicious cycle that needs external intervention – from dosages of the best multivitamins for diabetics, for example – to break.
Multivitamin vs Nutritious Diet for Diabetes?
If people with diabetes are at a greater risk of vitamin deficiencies, then surely munching on multivitamins is the best way to keep your vitamin and nutrients topped up, right? Not necessarily: Vitamins and minerals in whole foods are more easily absorbed by your body because they contain a much wider spectrum of nutrients like fiber that help your body absorb and use these nutrients.
Furthermore, a healthy diet low in refined sugars will help you stay healthy and lower your risk of diabetes complications MUCH more than supplementing an unhealthy with multivitamins. However, if you suffer from a vitamin deficiency that you struggle to get in your diet, supplements are extremely helpful, so we’ve included a list of nutrients that many diabetics lack to help you find the best multivitamin for diabetics.
