Break out that jar of wheat germ in the back of the refrigerator
because it might help save your life
if you are diabetic.
Scientists are assessing research that suggests high
dosages of Vitamin E - naturally found in wheat germ, vegetable oils,
margarine, whole-grain breads, nuts and peanut butter -may help stave off the
ravages of diabetes.
The complications from diabetes can be devastating,including
heart disease, eye and nerve damage,leading to amputations and kidney failure.About
16 million Americans have the disease,which is caused by a deficiency of
insulin,a hormone secreted by the pancreas and that is essential for converting
sugar, starches and other foods into energy for cells.Lacking insulin, sugars build
up in the blood rather than entering cells to fuel them. The result is that the
body's cells literally can starve to death, causing the complications.
At the same time, the unprocessed sugar damages the
weakened cell walls.
Some 798,000 new cases of diabetes are diagnosed annually
in the United States.It is a chronic disease that has no cure and is the
seventh leading cause of death in the United States, according to the Centers
for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta.
Diabetes has two major subsets.
In Type 1 diabetes, most often occurring in
children and young adults,the body does not produce insulin and
patients must take daily insulin injections to live.
Type 1 accounts for about 10 percent of all diabetes cases.
In Type 2 diabetes, the body either doesn't make
enough insulin or doesn't properly use it to convert foods.
This is the most common form of the disease, comprising
about 90 percent of all cases.
Weight loss and exercise can control many of these cases.
African-Americans, Hispanic-Americans,American Indians
and some Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders are at particularly high risk for
Type 2 diabetes.
Scientists believe high doses of Vitamin E help diabetics
on at least two levels.
First, the vitamin acts as an antioxidant, a kind
of chemical shield that protects cells against free radicals -
potentially damaging byproducts of the body's metabolism.
The U.S. National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, Md.,
says that free radicals can cause cell damage that may
contribute to heart disease and certain cancers.
And diabetics have an abnormally large supply of free
radicals triggered by the high level of
sugars, or glucose, in the blood.
Second, Vitamin E appears to arrest the effects of
glucose.
Dr. George King, professor of medicine at Harvard Medical
School and research director of the Joslin Diabetes Center in Boston, explained
that high glucose levels stimulate the development of an enzyme - known as PKC
-
that is particularly dangerous to diabetics.
``For some reason that isn't clear yet, Vitamin E in high
doses not only is an antioxidant but it also inhibits the enzyme PKC.When that
is done, you reverse or stop or prevent many of the blood-vessel complications
we
find in diabetes,'' said King, one the country's leading
Vitamin E researchers.
Damage to nerves, eyes, kidneys and heart appears to be
slowed or arrested in diabetics when they take large daily doses of the
vitamin,somewhere in the range of 1,000 international units or more.
The typical over-the-counter supplement is around 250 to
400 IUs.
Vitamin E ``could have dramatic consequences if a larger
clinical trial showed that this can be helpful,'' King added.Most of the
studies showing a benefit have been conducted on small numbers of diabetics,usually
under 200 patients.King said large pharmaceutical companies are reluctant to
foot the bill for an expensive study with thousands of participants because no single company
has a patent on the vitamin.
Likewise, the NIH tends to give vitamin studies low
priority ``because it's not as sexy as other medical developments,'' King
lamented.
Some of the strongest recent evidence for a benefit to
diabetics comes from researchers at
the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center in
Dallas, where scientists found that Vitamin E
reduced the risk of heart failure in diabetics.Heart disease is one of the most serious side effects of
diabetes.
Researchers showed that Vitamin E curtailed the
inflammation in blood vessels of the heart. Left unchecked, the swelling of the vessels can lead to
heart disease.Researchers studied 75 patients who had Type 2diabetes.
Test subjects received l,200 IUs of Vitamin E daily,and all of the participants experienced a drop-off in
inflammation.
``The study showed that Vitamin E significantly decreases
micro-vascular complications'' in diabetics, he said.
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