Tuesday Sept 2, 2014 (foodconsumer.org) -- For the first time, an animal study has revealed that taking multivitamin supplements actually helps diabetes mellitus or prediabetes.

Patients with diabetes mellitus more often than others take multivitamins, but no previous studies examined how the supplementation could actually help treat diabetes mellitus.

In the study, rats with antibiotic-induced diabetes received a multivitamin preparation or a placebo for eight weeks.   Fasting blood glucose and oral glucose tolerance test were conducted at week 4, 8 and 12.  At week 12, serum insulin and blood HbA1c were also measured.

As a result, Rats injected with 100 mg/kg of streptozotocin had glucose tolerance impaired at week 4.   In male rats treated with antibiotic but not multivitamin, both fasting blood glucose and HbA1c were significantly increased and both glucose tolerance and plasma insulin concentrations were decreased at week 12.

Rats treated with not only antibiotic but also multivitamin supplements improved all the diagnostic parameters of diabetes mellitus.

Multivitamin did not help improve the diagnostic parameters of diabetes mellitus in female rats as antibiotic did not induce as severe prediabetic-like phenotype.  (David Liu, PHD)

Márta Sárközy, Veronika Fekete, Gerg¿ Sz¿cs, Szilvia Török, Csilla Sz¿cs, Judit Bárkányi, Zoltán V Varga, Imre Földesi, Csaba Csonka, Csaba Kónya, Tamás Csont and Péter Ferdinandy,  Anti-diabetic effect of a preparation of vitamins, minerals and trace elements in diabetic rats: a gender difference, BMC Endocrine Disorders 2014, 14:72