Vitamin C linked to reduced glucose levels in type 2 diabetes
Vitamin C supplementation is associated with improved blood glucose levels in people with type 2 diabetes, research suggests.
“We found that participants had a significant 36% drop in blood sugar spike after meals. This also meant that they spent almost three hours less per day living in a state of hyperglycemia. This is extremely positive news as hyperglycemia is a risk factor for cardiovascular disease in people living with type 2 diabetes,” said associate professor Glenn Wadley, who led the study. The participants who took vitamin C also had lower blood pressure, the results revealed. Prof Wadley added: “Vitamin C’s antioxidant properties can help counteract the high levels of free radicals found in people with diabetes, and it’s encouraging to see this benefits a number of the disease’s common comorbidities, such as high blood pressure.
“For people living with type 2 diabetes, vitamin C could be a potentially cheap, convenient and effective additional therapy, used in addition to their usual anti-diabetic treatments. Study participants with hypertension also had their blood pressure levels drop while taking the vitamin C tablets.”
The findings indicate that vitamin C provides significant health benefit, but as the researchers say, the significance is that vitamin C is used as an “effective additional therapy”, such as a healthy diet.
Review: The role of zinc in the endocrine system
Zinc is essential in the regulation of a variety of physiological and biochemical events in the organism. It plays a critical role in maintaining the cell membrane integrity, protein-carbohydrate-lipid metabolism, immune system, wound injury and in the regulation of a number of other biological processes associated with normal growth and development. Physiological and biochemical levels of many hormones are affected by zinc metabolism. Therefore, growth impairment, hypogonadism, and some endocrine diseases are associated with the deficiency of zinc. These effects of zinc are considered versatile. Zinc increases the synthesis of the growth hormone and its number of receptors; thus, it is an important mediator in the binding of this hormone to its receptor. Found in a large quantity in the pancreas tissue, zinc has a part in the regulation of the effect of insulin. Zinc is involved to much more thyroid hormone metabolism such as hormone synthesis, receptor activity, conversion of T4 to T3, and production of carrier proteins. The low levels of zinc and high levels of leptin in obese individuals point to a critical relationship between zinc and leptin. Zinc is related to enzyme activity to melatonin synthesis. Melatonin has regulatory activity for zinc absorption from gastrointestinal system. Zinc particularly affects the conversion of testosterone to dihydrotestosterone, as 5α-reductase that is involved in this conversion is a zinc-dependent enzyme. In consideration of these relations, zinc is accepted to play critical roles in the endocrine system. The aim of the current review is to draw attention to the effects of zinc on the endocrine system.
Probiotic characteristics of Bacillus coagulans and associated implications for T human health and diseases
Due to its unique GI life cycle and probiotic effects, B. coagulans has shown great potential in the treatment of various human diseases. For example, through direct regulation or indirect modulation via the host microbiota, B. coagulans plays an impressive role in eliminating infec- tions and attenuating both GI diseases and diseases in remote tissues. Furthermore, the ability of B. coagulans to maintain host microbiota homeostasis can also aid the digestion of daily meals and promote gut health. Therefore, beneficial effects of B. coagulans result from comprehensive and coordinated processes, involving the host micro- biome, metabolism and immune system. However, there are multiple B. coagulans strains with different host origins, and many of the probiotic functions of B. coagulans are strain-dependent. Therefore, it may be advantageous to combine different strains of B. coagulans to maximize their beneficial effects in the future.