Diabetes supplement could lower risk of diabetes but only in men

Thu, 18 Mar 2010
A nutritional supplement could help people to lower their risk of developing type 2 diabetes, but only if they are male. Those men that have high levels of the antioxidant Selenium faced a much lower risk of developing diabetes .

The supplement, which appears naturally in nuts and liver, and is sold as capsules in wholefoods and health shops, did not have the same influence on women. Those men that had high levels of selenium faced a 50 per cent lower risk of developing a condition known as dysglycemia – which is when the body cannot regulate blood-sugar and is a precursor to diabetes .

University of Montpellier expert Tasnime Akbaraly was reported as saying: "Our results showed that for elderly males, having (blood) selenium concentrations in the top third of the population was significantly associated with a lower risk of developing dysglycemia over the following nine years. The reason we observed a protective effect of selenium in men but not in women is not completely clear, but might be attributed to women being healthier at baseline, having better antioxidant status in general and possible differences in how men and women process selenium."

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