EDIT:
30 June 2010 - @zeno001 just tweeted
@zeno001 Poor clinical trial not sufficient proof for #ASA - Vitabiotics and diabetes: http://bit.ly/bmu4rs http://twitter.com/zeno001/status/17369803811
I never actually saw the advert that they refer to (amazingly it wasn't actually me that put in the complaint to the ASA!), I heard about this product because someone asked me about it and I looked at the website. What's also noticeable about the ASA complaint is that this effect has taken place because of the actions of ONE person.
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All views are my own, may be wrong, may be changed with new evidence and additionally I am not medically trained so nothing here should ever be taken as medical advice.
UK pharmacist Boots apparently sells Diabetone online pharmacy viagra (for around £10 for 30 tablets) and the tablets are also available online.
Company website: http://www.vitabiotics.com/Diabetone/
According to the Diabetone website the product is "supported by original published nutritional research" having been formulated to contain the nutrients of "special relevance to people with diabetes". However the actual claims made are that the product may enhance wellbeing in people with diabetes; the product doesn't appear to have any effect on blood glucose management etc.
The short version of this blog post is that this conclusion is drawn from a single study of 29 people with Type 2 diabetes - it's a pilot study, which indicated some improvements in wellbeing when taking the supplements compared with placebo, but I think possibly a bit more research is needed before anyone can really conclude that these pills are doing that much.
The longer version is below...
There's some sensible stuff on the 'More information' section about eating healthily, and some indications that people with diabetes may have reduced levels of certain vitamins etc. (I've no particular dispute with this but wonder if, assuming the deficit is minor couldn't it be remedied with dietary changes or if it's more serious perhaps a 'once-a-day' multivitamin tablet mightn't be enough... also some deficiencies could even be because of a problem in absorption from the intestine and I don't think a tablet's going to help much there).
The FAQ is also very good, highlighting that advice should be sought from healthcare professionals and that Diabetone is "not a treatment for diabetes or metabolic control, but intended to help maintain overall health and wellbeing." This is based on research which suggests "that a multinutrient supplement [Diabetone] may [help] enhance wellbeing" and there's some vague stuff about it being "important for people with diabetes to maintain healthy insulin metabolism and research shows that certain nutrients can help to maintain normal, healthy glucose metabolism."
Only one reference ("Enhanced Wellbeing of Adults with Type 2 Diabetes following Multi-Vitamin and Mineral Supplementation") is cited, however no link is given to the original article. Google's very helpful for this sort of thing though.
Assuming that's the right paper, it was published in 2007, in 'Integrative Medicine Insights' which I hadn't heard of (the word Diabetone does not feature in PubMed, although apparently any of the journal's NIH funded articles would be indexed in PubMed) - here's an abstract and the full PDF is also linked below.
The research article itself is a pilot study, of 29 subjects with Type 2 diabetes who had fairly good baseline levels of blood glucose and blood pressure. The main things looked at were to see if Diabetone has any effect on the sorts of blood parameters that are important in diabetes (including fasting glucose levels, HbA1c and lipids) which it apparently doesn't.
"In our pilot study, a multinutrient supplement failed to significantly improve the glycemic and lipemic profile of patients with type 2 diabetes with relatively good baseline glycemic and blood pressure control. In most studies which have demonstrated such improvements in diabetes, nutrients were administered at higher doses than in our study."
The secondary outcome was wellbeing, as assessed by the wellbeing questionnaire W-BQ 22.
The conclusion, adapted on the website is "Findings from this pilot study suggest that a multinutrient supplement may enhance the wellbeing of diabetic patients, even in the absence of a significant improvement in clinical parameters."
Well OK it *might*... but I think drawing this conclusion about the pills based on a pilot study is a little premature.
More information on getting a varied diet can be found at the website of the Food Standards Agency (see the menu on the left hand side).
Reference
Marakis, G, Walker, AF., Simpson, HCR, Byng, M and Robinson PA (2007) Enhanced wellbeing of adults with Type 2 diabetes following multi-vitamin and mineral supplementation for three months in a randomised, double-blind, cross-over pilot study. Integrative Medicine Insights, 2: 7-14. Download PDF
PubMed Diabetone hits - 0
Mentions of Diabetone in ClinicalTrials.gov - 0
Mentions of Diabetone in Controlled-trials.com - 0
Always get medical advice from medically qualified people, and not me :)
