supplements

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Patricia

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Hello all

This is a follow on from the previous thread about illness recovery. And we may have done it before, so apologies! But is there a search tool on this forum?! Can't find it...

Anyhow. Anyone take supplements? Which ones and why or why not?

Wondering about overall health, that's all...
 
Patricia said:
Hello all

This is a follow on from the previous thread about illness recovery. And we may have done it before, so apologies! But is there a search tool on this forum?! Can't find it...

Anyhow. Anyone take supplements? Which ones and why or why not?

Wondering about overall health, that's all...
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Hi... i usually take multi vitamins and thats about it really!!! oh and in the winter vitamin c, i have taken vitamins for years simply because i was a vegetarian and got in to the habit. 🙂
 
Search button is 6th from left on top pink strip - first word is User CP. General advice re dietary supplements is that they are unecessary if eating a normal diet and unless advised by a dietician.
 
like addicit i take winter vitemin c only
 
I take Sanatogen Gold multivitamins. Like insulinaddict I used to be vegetarian, plus I have read that diabetics don't absorb some vitamins as well as non-diabetics (vitamin b?) so have a 'top-up'. They put me on these in hospital, and also Strong vitamin b compound and thiamin, although I stopped the latter two 6 months ago. In hospital they gave me a lot of potassium, but I think that was related to my DKA.
 
Northerner said:
I take Sanatogen Gold multivitamins. Like insulinaddict I used to be vegetarian, plus I have read that diabetics don't absorb some vitamins as well as non-diabetics (vitamin b?) so have a 'top-up'. They put me on these in hospital, and also Strong vitamin b compound and thiamin, although I stopped the latter two 6 months ago. In hospital they gave me a lot of potassium, but I think that was related to my DKA.
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Ha ha ....oh yes i remember the potassium tablets well.... those dissolvable purply coloured ones....... yuck!! mine was because of my dka aswell.😱
 
insulinaddict09 said:
Ha ha ....oh yes i remember the potassium tablets well.... those dissolvable purply coloured ones....... yuck!! mine was because of my dka aswell.😱
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Indeed! The nurse was always very apologetic when she brought that stuff round!😱
 
This is very interesting. I've found the old supplements thread (thank you copepod!), and see there that three months ago there was all this stuff about vitamin b1 too... I really, really wonder about ways of boosting the body's natural provisions. Because I am also wondering whether diabetes depletes the body's provisions in ways we don't even know -- such that a good diet may not be able to keep up with it...

My son eats a great diet, and eats like a horse. A typical meal for him will be (last night) pan-fried salmon, spinach, broccoli, mashed potato, jam tart, milk...Yet he has been feeling rather under the weather for much of the last four months, one way or another. Some of the swings are bg related, but I do feel that he just *hangs onto* illness.

I'm tempted to try something. It's easy to say that 'it can do no harm' -- but can it? Does anyone know if supplements can interfere with diabetes treatment in some way?
 
I think it's best to seek a doctor or pharmacist's advice, as a lot of supplements/'health' foods can interact with prescribed medications. I think also there is a danger of thinking that insulin is just something we need to turn glucose into energy - it has many other purposes in the body. Plus, the way we deliver it by injection is a very crude way compared to a fully working endocrine system - maybe less so on a pump, not sure - but maybe this has effects too that a non-diabetic wouldn't encounter.
 
I sometimes take a multivitamin, I should really take it all the time but I don't like taking pills so most often don't. I generally start when I am feeling a bit under the weather. I take echinishea (?spelling) when i start to feel I might be coming down with something and I really think it helps. maybe it's psychological but I do think it fights off illnesses
 
Northerner said:
Indeed! The nurse was always very apologetic when she brought that stuff round!😱
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ha ha yes mine was the same... although i was still soooo thirsty i just drank it anyway lol
 
im a one a day multi vitamin man. and also take a one a day cod liver oil to. when i get the sniffles i start to take solubble vitamin c as i find this usually staves off a bad case for me.
 
I take rather a lot but have a break from each one now and again. It's right, they can affect your use of insulin, might be as well to check. I take chromium because it can help utilise sugar, flax seed oil (another variant of omega 3) Ginseng, and Soy isofalvins (these are a 'natural' remedy for menopause symptoms!) Echinea. Metformin can lower your iron and I think that's why your levels are tested. All the above have other vits, including the Bs included.

Junkie, I know! 🙂
 
Northerner said:
I posted this in the News section, but also relevant here!

Interesting story about the role of 'free radicals' in Type 2 diabetes, and how anti-oxidant vitamins like Vit C may be harmful:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/8043456.stm
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Very intereting - thanks! Wonder if its the same for type 1's? May explain why I'm struggling with the running - a lot of the stuff I take is high in anti-oxidants. Might try seeing what life is like without them as they each get used up....

Mind you I always like to check the validity of research (didn't get an 'ology for nothing you know!)
 
runner said:
Very intereting - thanks! Wonder if its the same for type 1's? May explain why I'm struggling with the running - a lot of the stuff I take is high in anti-oxidants. Might try seeing what life is like without them as they each get used up....

Mind you I always like to check the validity of research (didn't get an 'ology for nothing you know!)
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But it was in the news - it must be true!🙄

Presumably, if the free radicals improve insulin sensitivity then it must also do this in Type 1s, so maybe by taking the vits you are simply neutralising the effect of exercise, which may be neither here not there in a Type 1, but negating exercise as a means of BG control in Type 2s (or people with insulin resistance). OK, I might have just spouted gibberish, but it made sense to me!:D
 
runner said:
Very intereting - thanks! Wonder if its the same for type 1's? May explain why I'm struggling with the running - a lot of the stuff I take is high in anti-oxidants. Might try seeing what life is like without them as they each get used up....

Mind you I always like to check the validity of research (didn't get an 'ology for nothing you know!)
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Hi Runner, I posted in Northener's other thread about this, but I didn't put a link. The paper is here: http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2...ract?sid=ae77d663-7826-4f99-ae94-be98ba9d80e7

I think it's open access, just in case you wanna check it out 🙂
 
katie said:
free radicals good? I thought they were what slowly aged us. how confusing :D
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Thngs were a lot simpler when I was a kid - you just got 1 haliborange tablet a day (mmm!) and your mum would hide two cod liver oil capsules in your mashed potatoes so you would eat them by mistake. Then you grew up fit and healthy like me! Erm...😱
 
Northerner said:
Thngs were a lot simpler when I was a kid - you just got 1 haliborange tablet a day (mmm!) and your mum would hide two cod liver oil capsules in your mashed potatoes so you would eat them by mistake. Then you grew up fit and healthy like me! Erm...😱
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Oh it's ok, they do age you:

It is thought that antioxidant vitamins may be able to prevent damage to the body's tissues called "oxidative stress" by eliminating the free radicals which are said to cause it.

This damage has been implicated in several major diseases including cancer and heart disease as well as normal ageing.
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Thought id wasted an hour of my life watching I programme about what causes us to age and eventually die that wasn't even true, but it's ok they weren't lying to me!

My mum used to give me cod oil capsules. I'm sure it's done something - made our hair shinier perhaps?
 
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