The healthy diet recommended for diabetes by Diabetes UK, is a balanced diet low in fat, sugar and salt, including at least five portions of fruit and vegetables per day, and meals including starchy carbohydrate foods.
A balanced and varied diet provides all the nutrients needed to maintain health. Unless a deficiency has been diagnosed by your healthcare team, there is no need for people with diabetes to take additional vitamin or mineral supplements. If you think your diet may be deficient, you should seek advice from your registered dietitian or GP, who may recommend you take a multivitamin or mineral supplement, or a particular nutrient.
(Note: Women with diabetes should take a prescribable supplement of 5mg of folic acid when planning pregnancy, and continue to take it until the end of the 12th week of pregnancy.)
Clinical evidence
There has, and continues to be, much research into different vitamins/minerals and their effect on diabetes management, particularly those involved in glucose metabolism (eg vitamin B3 and chromium), or antioxidant nutrients (eg beta carotene, vitamins C and E and selenium); or their association in causing the onset of diabetes. However, to date, there is no clinical evidence to recommend that, in general, people with diabetes would benefit from taking a vitamin/mineral supplement.
In many trials using antioxidant vitamins, for example, the health benefits shown through taking real foods has not been mimicked by the taking of supplements, and in some studies have actually proved harmful. The message is, therefore, that dietary sources of vitamins and minerals are best. Vitamin supplements do not replace, and should not be used to replace, diabetes medication.
Reviewed: May 2012
Next review: November 2013