The continent has become the world's diabetic power, with an average of one in twenty people ending up with a sick person.
It is a class of metabolic diseases characterized by hyperglycemia, which can be divided into type I diabetes mellitus (about 5%) and type II diabetes. The triggers mainly include islet cell dysfunction (common in patients with type I diabetes mellitus) and insulin resistance (common in patients with type II diabetes).
The clinical symptoms are "three more and one less", that is, eating more, urinating more, thirsting and drinking more, and weight loss.
This kind of disease itself does not endanger life, but because the various organs and tissues of the body such as cardiovascular and cerebrovascular, nerves, kidneys, for a long time in a state of high sugar, it is very easy to develop lesions, and eventually appear such as kidney disease, coronary heart disease, atherosclerosis, hypertension, heart failure, cerebral infarction, cerebral hemorrhage, peripheral neuropathy, stroke, foot disease and other life-threatening serious diseases.
In real life, the probability of complications of diabetes is extremely high, and patients often suffer from it, which can be said to have reached the point of discoloration. Many sugar friends want to stop the disease from progressing, and even hope to reverse diabetes.
For example, a patient recently received by the department, Aunt Zhang, has just retired at the age of 60, but has been diabetic for eight years.
When I was first diagnosed, I was still more concerned about the condition, whether it was in diet or scientific medication, so the blood sugar control in the first two years was relatively stable. But it is also stable, Aunt Zhang gradually began to relax her vigilance, and she heard others say that diabetes is a "rich disease", meat, eggs and milk nutritious things are best not to eat, so she basically relies on white rice and some vegetables to maintain.
Over time, her blood sugar became unstable and she had complications, in addition to poor sleep, exhaustion, and muscle soreness throughout her body, she also felt that her limbs were often numb, and sometimes there was a tingling pain at a certain point.
The preliminary diagnosis is a disorder of glucose metabolism and neurological dysfunction due to vitamin deficiency. In addition to prescribing hypoglycemic drugs, the doctor also gave some vitamins to Aunt Zhang, suggesting that she go home and cooperate with diet to scientifically control sugar.
Aunt Zhang heard that she had complications, her legs were soft, and an aunt in the same community heard that it was a diabetic complication.
Aunt Zhang was overwhelmed by the doctor and promised that she would take medicine on time and eat a balanced diet according to the doctor's words, but she also asked a question that many patients were asking, "Can this disease be reversed?" ”
In fact, in a theoretical sense, it belongs to a class of lifelong diseases, and once diagnosed, it cannot be completely cured. However, for patients with type II diabetes mellitus, their metabolic indicators can gradually become normal by intensive dietary interventions, thereby delaying the occurrence of complications, and even for patients with better blood glucose control, the same quality of life as healthy people can be obtained. In a sense, this is also a kind of "reversal".
Therefore, if you want to "reverse" diabetes, dietary intervention is very critical. Unbalanced diet is very easy to appear like Aunt Zhang in the case, so the doctor recommends daily supplementation of these three vitamins to prevent diabetes and its complications, which will help to reverse diabetes! So which three are there?
The first: vitamin C
A large number of international academic research results show that compared with the vitamin C content in healthy people, the serum content of diabetic patients is declining, that is to say, diabetics are deficient in such vitamins in their bodies without additional vitamin C supplementation.
In a double-blind trial, the mainland research team found that people who ingested less than 69 mg of vitamin C in a single day were twice as likely to have a relative risk of diabetes in people with a single daily intake of more than 117 mg.
We all know that vitamin C is an essential nutrient in human life activities, and once it is lacking, it is most likely to affect the synthesis of collagen, and eventually cause the occurrence of scurvy.
At the same time, because it is an important antioxidant and coenzyme in the human body, with the lack of vitamins in the body, there may be problems such as low immunity and rupture of microvessels.
Once the bleeding point occurs on the skin, symptoms such as purple spots will appear; symptoms such as joint swelling and pain may occur in bone and joints; gingival bleeding and oral diseases will occur in teeth; and multi-organ bleeding will be induced when it occurs in other organs, which can cause death.
The reason why diabetics lack such vitamins in the body is mainly due to what we said above, diabetes itself is a type of metabolic disorder disease, so when the body's absorption and metabolism of vitamin C are problematic, it will naturally cause its deficiency. Appropriate supplementation of such vitamins not only meets the needs of the body, but also helps to promote the secretion of insulin.
Diabetes.co.uk released a study showing that appropriate VC supplementation has a significant improvement in blood glucose levels in patients with type II diabetes, especially reducing the peak of blood glucose after meals by 36%.
Another study showed that taking VC for one month had a reducing effect on fasting insulin levels and blood glucose concentrations, and its effect was more pronounced as the duration of use increased.
Meanwhile, a randomized controlled double-blind experiment in the United States showed that vitamin C can reduce the level of CRP in the blood. As a class of inflammatory markers, when the human body is infected or damaged, the level of CRP will rise sharply, which is also directly involved in the occurrence of cardiovascular disease. Therefore, appropriate vitamin C supplementation has a certain preventive effect on cardiovascular diseases and tissue damage caused by diabetes, delaying the occurrence of diabetic complications.
In addition, even patients who are already taking hypoglycemic drugs such as metformin can also be combined with vitamin C to achieve glycemic effects, and one study found that if two drugs are taken at the same time, after one year, the risk of complications in randomized single-blind trials in patients with type II diabetes is one in ten compared to those who only take metformin.
Different from the average person's single-day 200mg disease prevention dosage, diabetic patients are recommended to supplement 1000mg per day, and the study found that daily supplementation of sufficient VC can significantly reduce serum insulin concentration, fasting blood glucose concentration, and also have the effect of lowering cholesterol and triglycerides.
The second: vitamin E
As a class of fat-soluble natural antioxidants, vitamin E is also an essential substance for participating in the activities of the body, which has a positive effect on scavenging free radicals and maintaining the antioxidant and oxidative functions of the body.
Once the lack will make the body's antioxidant capacity decline rapidly and cause damage to the body's cells, but also will denature the protein, promote the loss of activity of various enzymes and hormones, so that the body has metabolic abnormalities, immune ability to decline, and eventually premature aging and even hemolysis.
In related studies, it was found that in prediabetes patients and diabetic patients, their oxidative stress levels were significantly higher than those in healthy people;
The level of vitamin E in their serum is significantly lower than that of healthy people, and with the increase of blood sugar, the level of this type of vitamin is declining, especially after the symptoms of insulin resistance, the vitamin E level in their bodies is lower.
The reason is that when the body develops diabetes in the process of ROS, and when the body produces a large amount of ROS, it will destroy the function of the mitochondria, thereby triggering an oxidative stress response, which will produce a large number of free radicals in the process, while consuming more anti-free radical substances, so the study found that the antioxidants in the body of type II diabetics patients were consumed in large quantities, and excessive oxidative stress reactions occurred. Antioxidant enzymes are positively correlated with vitamin E, so vitamin E levels are constantly decreasing during the development of diabetes.
At the same time, international studies have shown that people who lack vitamin E are four times more likely to develop diabetes than healthy people;
In the group of patients with type II diabetes, patients who continuously take vitamin E have a 50% lower probability of developing cardiovascular disease than similar patients who have not taken it.
With the development of medicine, people have gradually found that in addition to being related to diabetes, vitamin E is also an inhibitor of the DAG-PKC pathway, which can reduce cardiovascular and cerebrovascular diseases such as coronary heart disease, atherosclerosis, thrombosis and other cardiovascular and cerebrovascular diseases caused by such diseases, and at the same time, appropriate vitamin E supplementation also has the effect of delaying the occurrence of other diabetic complications such as liver disease and anemia.
The third: vitamin B1
Group B compounds involved in fat, protein and sugar metabolism, usually in the form of coenzymes in the body, are a class of essential trace elements to maintain the normal activities of the body, and they are mostly concentrated in the liver.
Different from fat-soluble vitamins, B vitamins are not stored too much in the body, and excess will be excreted with urine. The B vitamin system is huge, including folic acid, B12, B2, etc., which are well known to us, and vitamin B1 is directly related to the onset of diabetes.
First, we need to understand that insulin can promote glycogen synthesis, and when it sends sugar into cells, it will undergo glucose oxidation phosphorylation, which is eventually converted into the energy required by the body.
In this process, glycolysis to produce pyruvate and then into mitochondria into CoA (the initial aerobic metabolism of sugars, fats, proteins) requires pyruvate decarboxylase catalysis, and the coenzyme involved in it is vitamin B1.
That is to say, without its existence, not only can the metabolic conversion process of sugar not be completed, but fat production capacity will also be greatly affected.
At the same time, vitamin B1 is also a key coenzyme involved in the pentose phosphate cycle, which plays an indispensable role in the synthesis of nucleic acids and fatty acids, and once the lack directly affects the integrity of nerve cells, diabetic polyneurosis is produced.
Studies have shown that both type I and type II diabetes patients are deficient in this type of vitamin, and compared with healthy people, the vitamin B1 in diabetics has decreased by about 75%.
The moderate supplementation of vitamin B1 can significantly reduce urine protein, which has a very friendly therapeutic effect on diabetic complicated nephropathy; at the same time, this vitamin can also alleviate cardiovascular diseases such as atherosclerosis caused by diabetes by improving the abnormal glucose tolerance and vasodilation of diabetic patients; it can also delay the time of retinopathy in diabetic patients; most importantly, it has the effect of reducing the blood glucose level of type II diabetic patients.
It should be noted that although VC, VE, VB1 has corresponding effects in preventing diabetes and complications, it is only an adjuvant treatment and cannot completely replace traditional treatment. Therefore, once the blood sugar rises, you should seek medical treatment in time, you need to go through the diagnosis of the entire doctor, combine the individual situation with the drug, and do not use the drug privately.
At the same time, for patients with pre-diabetes, in addition to drug treatment, they can also achieve the goal by adjusting their dietary structure and living habits.
First of all, in terms of diet, develop a reasonable diet structure, strictly control the daily intake of calories in the diet, and achieve less and more meals. Avoid the intake of high-sugar, high-salt, high-fat foods, while a balanced diet, meat, eggs, milk should be balanced; eat more fresh vegetables without starch, can help patients effectively control blood sugar levels, and do not forget to consume adequate dietary fiber and vitamins.
Secondly, in life, we must abandon bad living habits, quit smoking and alcohol, stay up late, live a regular life and go to bed early and get up early; at the same time, reasonable exercise, for some patients who are not suitable for strenuous exercise, you can take relatively quiet aerobic exercise such as yoga and tai chi, which can increase the body's sensitivity to insulin, effectively reduce blood sugar levels, and at the same time reduce cholesterol to delay the occurrence of complications.
In addition, we must do regular testing, only by mastering the change value of blood glucose, it is good to carry out the next step of treatment, blood glucose levels are dynamic, do not wait until the symptoms are very obvious to check, so as not to delay the disease.
It is worth mentioning that in addition to the well-known type 1 diabetes and type 2 diabetes patients, there is also a type of prediabetes between healthy people and diabetic people.
This group of people can also be called progressive people, they have not been diagnosed with diabetes mellitus (World Health Organization data: fasting ≥ 6.1, 2h after meals≥7.8), but they due to various factors caused by the body's insulin resistance, blood sugar levels continue to rise and other problems. At this point, most people can return to their normal state if dietary interventions are carried out.
All in all, although diabetes is a chronic lifelong disease and can induce a variety of serious complications, it is not incurable.
For example, the three types of vitamins mentioned in the article have the effect of helping to lower blood sugar levels and delay the occurrence of complications. Especially for those patients who are before the age of 50 and are in prediabetes, as long as they are actively treated, reasonable vitamin supplementation can generally control the disease very well.
Even in patients with diabetes for many years after the age of 60, more than half of them can control their condition relatively stable. Therefore, everyone must adjust their mentality, actively treat, and strive to control blood sugar to the ideal range.
bibliography:
Yang Xue, Chen Guofang, and Liu Chao. "The Current Situation and Prospects of Reversing Type 2 Diabetes," Chinese Journal of Diabetes 13.7(2021):7.
[2] Joch. Effects of vitamin B1 and its derivatives on diabetic peripheral neuropathy. Diss. Zhengzhou University, 2016.
Wang Xuping. "Correlation between serum VE-Ca and carotid atherosclerosis in newly diagnosed type 2 diabetes mellitus," Chinese Journal of Tropical Medicine, Vol. 14, No. 10, 1251-1253, ISTIC CA (2014).
[4] Ji Xing. Effects and mechanisms of vitamin C in improving diabetic nephropathy by activating protein kinase B to inhibit TGF-β signaling pathways. Diss. Zhejiang University, 2017.
Liang Xiaochun. "Research Progress on Prediabetes Intervention and Reversal," Beijing Journal of Traditional Chinese Medicine 9 (2016):4.