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.