We are going to talk about special vitamins to stop diabetic complications. And the vitamins we’ll talk about are alpha lipoic acid and acetyl l-carnitine and benfotiamine. We’ll also talk about important B vitamins like vitamin B6 and vitamin B12. And then we’ll also have to talk about the role the vitamin D plays in all of this.
And at the end of this guide, we’ll talk about a special way to utilize things like magnesium and vitamin C to help prevent and reverse diabetes complications.
Now, this is important. This is not just a list of vitamins that every person with diabetes needs to take. Every nutrient we are going to talk about has a very specific mechanism that targets a specific damage that is caused by diabetes or prediabetes.
So some people will benefit from one of these or two of these. And some may require a more complete approach depending on what specific problem their diabetes may be causing.
So every regimen is going to be different. But by the end of the guide, you’ll know exactly what each of these nutrients do and how you can incorporate them into your routine to add a powerful second layer defense against diabetes.
And if you know somebody that is suffering from diabetes or diabetes complications, share this guide with them because it’s so important to prevent these complications early on.
Vitamins to Stop Diabetic Complications
Getting your blood sugar levels down is just one part of the equation. But another part that’s often neglected is protecting yourself from the damage that is caused by high blood sugars. And high levels of sugars or glucose can silently harden your blood vessels. And it damages your nerves and your kidneys.
And it can even damage your eyes and your brain. And there’s so much connection between diabetes and Alzheimer’s dementia that many researchers have actually started referring to Alzheimer’s as type 3 diabetes, where some of the damage is hypothesized to be caused by vascular damage and insulin resistance in the brain.
And here’s the problem, many diabetes medications, all they do is they lower your blood sugar. And yes, that’s helpful. But what these medications don’t do is they don’t address the damage occurring on a cellular level, where oxidative stress and inflammation leads to mitochondrial damage.
The way this damage works is every cell in our body has mitochondria that you can think of them as tiny little engines that produce energy. And if these mitochondria start to fail, our antioxidant defense systems become overwhelmed and they start misfiring. And the tiny blood vessels that supply blood and nutrients to our organs, they become so fragile.
And this is where the damage starts to set in. So this is the situation where we absolutely need these vitamins and these nutrients to give you that targeted protection to prevent cellular damage.
Alpha Lipoic Acid
Alpha lipoic acid is a very powerful antioxidant that is critical in maintaining mitochondrial function. And it’s so important to keep your mitochondria healthy because mitochondrial dysfunction is one of the key features in the progression of diabetes.
How Alpha Lipoic Acid Can Help
Alpha lipoic acid neutralizes oxidative stress that is attacking our cells and it helps regenerate antioxidants like glutathione and vitamin C. So it almost acts like a mitochondrial shield.
Another amazing thing about alpha lipoic acid is it’s both fat and water soluble, which means it can reach almost any cell in almost any part of the body. And it can even cross the blood-brain barrier. And it can reach and protect the brain and the central nervous system.
And we have a recent meta-analysis and systematic review from 2023 to show that alpha lipoic acid produce favorable effects in the sensory symptoms. So it helps with things like burning and tingling and even numbness of your feet.
Benfotiamine
Benfotiamine is just a specialized fat-soluble form of thiamine or vitamin B1. But unlike thiamine, benfotiamine is better absorbed into cells.
How Benfotiamine Help
Benfotiamine acts on a special process that we often see in diabetes called the polyol pathway, which is a special pathway that is triggered in response to elevated blood sugars. And this pathway acts almost like a metabolic detour where it converts excess glucose into sorbidol and fructose.
This process just consumes and eats up all your reserves of antioxidants. And they produce a lot of oxidative stress that is extremely damaging to your cells. So benfotiamine works by shutting down this destructive pathway.
It does so by boosting a special enzyme called transketolase, which diverts glucose into safer metabolic routes. So think of benfotiamine as a firewall against sugar toxicity. And it helps early on in the treatment, especially when you’re experiencing really high blood sugars.
And we have randomized controlled trials like this one that show that benfotiamine can improve neuropathy scores. And we have other studies that show that treatments between three weeks to six months reduce the main symptoms of diabetic neuropathy.
In the U.S., you can get benfotiamine as a supplement. And in Europe, it’s actually been used as a prescription drug since 1978.
Acetyl L-carnitine
Acetyl L-carnitine is a naturally occurring amino acid derivative. And it’s incredibly important in mitochondrial energy metabolism. Think of it as a shuttle bus that carries long-chain fatty acids into the mitochondria, where they’re burned for energy or fuel.
How acetyl L-carnitine help diabetes
In people with diabetes, especially long-standing diabetes, the nerves are under a constant metabolic stress. Stress that comes from glucose-induced oxidative damage and poor blood flow. And this is what causes burning and tingling and numbness that we see with diabetic neuropathy.
So acetyl L-carnitine helps with nerve regeneration by reducing this oxidative stress.
And on top of that, it also affects your levels of neurotransmitters like acetylcholine and serotonin and dopamine, which also help misfiring nerves to communicate better and relieve neuropathic pain.
And even beyond diabetes, acetyl L-carnitine may also help with Alzheimer’s dementia. And there was a multi-center, randomized, double-blind, placebo- controlled trial that showed that treatment with 1,500 milligrams of acetyl L-carnitine for six months produced significant improvement in cognitive assessment.
Another bonus, it may also help with fatigue, like in this small randomized controlled trial where treatment with acetyl L-carnitine showed a decrease in physical fatigue and mental fatigue. And it also showed improvement of functional status and improvement in cognitive function.
So this is something you will talk to your doctor if there’s concern, not just about peripheral neuropathy, but if you’re also suffering from fatigue, both mental and physical fatigue, or if there’s some concern for cognitive decline.
Now you can take it in the supplement form, but you can also get it from food like beef or pork or chicken or cow’s milk. In fact, there are some studies that show that you’ll actually get more acetyl L-carnitine from food than from supplements.
Vitamin B6 and Vitamin B12
There are two very important B vitamins that can help stave off diabetes complications, and that is vitamin B6 and vitamin B12.
And that is because these vitamins are absolutely essential for a process called methylation, which is something that your body uses to repair DNA and regulate inflammation.
So vitamin B6, or it’s also called pyridoxine, helps us support neurotransmitter production. So it improves communication between nerve cells.
And vitamin B12, it can help with nerve regeneration. In fact, vitamin B12 is what helps us maintain our myelin sheet, or this protective coating around our nerves. And if we don’t get enough B12, well, that protective coating breaks down and nerves start misfiring.
And this is where the damage sits in. Now B12 is especially important if you’re also taking a medication called metformin, because drugs like metformin can interfere with your body’s ability to absorb B12. So most people that have diabetes should talk to their doctor about adding B12 to their regimen.
And if you’re a metformin, the B12 then becomes an absolute must.
Vitamin D
Vitamin D is technically a hormone, not a vitamin. And vitamin D is extremely important in general, but especially in diabetes.
So first of all, vitamin D influences over 200 genes. And its key role is actually modulating the immune system and reducing chronic inflammation, both of which are directly involved in development and progression of diabetes complications.
And low vitamin D levels have been strongly linked to higher risk of all the bad diabetes complications, like high blood pressure, and heart disease, and obesity, and infections.
Now the tricky part with vitamin D is there’s no real consensus on what’s considered normal levels. And we definitely don’t want to overdo it with vitamin D, as too high of levels of vitamin D can also cause issues like weakness and kidney stones.
Magnesium
Now a couple more heavy hitters that most people with diabetes should consider because most people with advanced diabetes are deficient in magnesium.
And that is because high blood sugar and insulin resistance, they cause kidneys to waste magnesium. And magnesium is incredibly important in modulating insulin receptor sensitivity, so it helps with insulin resistance. And magnesium also reduces vascular calcifications, and it can help with endothelial dysfunction.
So in other words, magnesium helps with blood vessel health, and it improves heart health, and improves circulation, and it helps prevent things like diabetic foot infections or heart attacks, and it helps prevent strokes.
And here’s the kicker, we need magnesium to activate vitamin D. So even if your vitamin D levels look okay, without adequate magnesium stores, you may not be doing a job properly. So magnesium is incredibly important, especially if you’re also dealing with bad circulation or heart disease, or if you’re having issues with low vitamin D.
Vitamin C
Now another vitamin that plays an incredibly important role in protecting against diabetes is vitamin C. Now most people think of vitamin C when it comes to your immune system or fighting colds, but vitamin C is also a powerful antioxidant.
Vitamin C is our body’s first line of defense against oxidative stress, or stress that eventually leads to neuropathy and diabetic eye disease, or kidney disease, or heart disease, you name it.
So vitamin C neutralizes free radicals before they can damage your organs or tissues. And here’s something most people don’t know, sugar and vitamin C, they actually compete with each other to get into your body’s cells.
They both use the same receptor or doorway to get inside something called GLUT1. And think of it like a busy hallway. If there’s too much sugar in your blood, it crowds the hallway and it blocks vitamin C from getting in.
So that’s why people with high blood sugars can actually end up with low vitamin C inside their cells, even if they’re technically eating enough. The sugar basically blocks vitamin C from getting where it needs to go. So for people with diabetes, it’s extremely important to prioritize foods that are rich in vitamin C. So you want to prioritize things like bell peppers, and citrus, and berries, and brussel sprouts.
And you’ll also may need to consider a supplement, especially if you’re dealing with diabetic wounds and poor wound healing.
Conclusion
Most people do not need to take every single vitamin or nutrient on this list. If you’re dealing with fatigue, or mental exhaustion, or decline, you may need something like acetylcarotene and magnesium.
Or if you’re dealing with neuropathy, well then alpha lipoic acid and B12 can be extremely helpful. And vitamin C is your most potent antioxidant, and it helps out compete glucose so you end up with absorbing less sugar. So talk to your doctor about which one of these may be right for you.
And make sure you routinely check your B12 levels and your vitamin D levels, especially if you’re taking a supplement. And your doctor can also help you with dosing, as the right dose depends on the severity of your diabetes, and your kidney, and your liver function. And once again, this whole thing is about targeted protection, where you’re using specific vitamins as a second layer of protection against very specific mechanisms that cause cellular damage in diabetes.
