Your feedbacks on the best food supplements

rosemaree said:

I decided to try Amla, I have been having trouble sticking to my lifestyle plans due to stress and other issues, so was looking for something to support my bg levels in the interim.
I bought the powdered organic amalaki, tried to take it in water it's a bit hard to get down, but after 3/4 days I did notice slightly lower morning readings, although I seemed to get higher after meal spikes.

Going to try take it with a smoothie rather, will keep you all posted on how it goes!

Would be great to hear others experiences with alternative treatments/supplements!

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D@n1el said:

For a month, after reading a while about things that theoretically could be good to the pancreas and insulin secretion, I've combined 1800mg of Berberine, 1500mg of Bitter Melon extract, 1 raw garlic clove (5g~9g, very hard to take it), a small piece of Ginger (20g~30g, not that easy either) and a hard to define amount of capsaicin (20~40 drops of Tabasco pepper on food, no idea how much capsaicin that is).

My average FBG dropped about 7,75%, from 96,37 mg/dL to 88,9 mg/dL (this is average, on some days I'd have 108mg/dL, for instance, I am a prediabetic). During this month, I ate freely, there was good food, but also junk and chocolate and many other stuff. I've tried many diets for over a year, I just couldn't handle always having something forbidden anymore, specially because my BG was slowly rising no matter what I did and how disciplined I was. I've tried from full vegetarian to carnivore, from 16-hour fasting every day to 7-day fasting twice (3 months distance between each 7-day fasting).

With all those things I'm still taking (berberine/bitter melon/garlic/ginger/pepper), one thing I simply cannot understand is that now usually when I eat more sugar, the next day I have lower FBG. I've never experienced anything like that before. I take no medication. So, for instance, I've been getting better FBG the day after I eat 100g of chocolate than the day after I eat 50g, On a particular day I ate rice and potatoes, no candies at all, and I was surprised my next FBG was higher than the values I'd get after chocolate days!

I've decided to try something related to pancreas and β cells simply because my HOMA-IR index (1,00) and HOMA-β index (44,26) implied (just implied, I know those indexes have limitations) I don't seem to have an IR big issue but I do seem to have an impaired insulin secretion all right.

I am a lean pre-diabetic and I still haven't tried traditional medication for treating diabetes.

If anyone's interested, a few links on the things I've tried:

Berberine:
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2410097/

Bitter Melon
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4027280/

Garlic
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5642189/

Ginger
https://www.intechopen.com/books/gi...view-of-the-antidiabetic-activities-of-ginger

Capsaicin
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/28230360/

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Gracie204 said:

I've taken many supplements over a lifetime, along with following a healthy diet, and have kept well. That is until a couple of years ago when I was diagnosed as being prediabetic. I took Amla for a long time, purchasing it in powder form from a local Asian shop. It does not taste very nice, but I got round this by purchasing a capsule filling device from Amazon, and filled my own capsules. However, I cannot say that Amla helped lower my blood glucose levels, but neither did berberine, chromium, cinnamon, or my latest find vanadium. I do not want to go on Metformin, but earlier this year not long after I had the second vaccine for Covid I suffered for three months with pain all over my body. This went but afterwards I discovered that my blood glucose levels had risen, propelling me into the diabetic zone, and despite following a low carb diet I cannot get my blood glucose levels down. So the search for a natural solution goes on!

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Snootybutnice said:

I take vitamin B12 and folic acid (to help body absorb B12), because I read that Metformin blocks your body’s ability to absorb B12 which puts you at higher risk for amputations because B12 helps repair. I also take cinnamon because they say it helps - not sure but love the taste so it won’t hurt!

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