When your doctor prescribes medications to help control your blood sugar, he likely doesn't mention the need for supplementation.

While drugs do help to keep your glucose on an even keel they do not address the underlying causes of the disease nor do they help prevent the complications of retinopathy, neuropathy and weight gain that strike so many with diabetes. Controlling blood sugar is an important step for every diabetic. But drugs miss out on one crucial element. Without it you can suffer blindness, amputation and kidney failure.

Much of the reason for these complications stems from the lack of certain nutrients that are lacking in the diabetic diet.

The majority of Americans are woefully deficient in many essential vitamins and minerals. In fact most don't even meet the RDA recommendations as set by government health agencies. It's hardly surprising that heart disease, cancer, arthritis, Alzheimer's and many of the degenerative diseases we see around us afflict so many.

If the levels of vitamins and minerals is low among so many average people, it goes double for the diabetic. Since the diabetic kidney is stressed as it attempts to rid the body of excess glucose, it unfortunately flushes out many nutrients too. It's the lack of these essential nutrients that leads to diabetic complications, not necessarily the result of high blood sugar.

Supplementation for diabetics is an absolute necessity. You need to replace what you lose everyday. The fact is that you can suffer the same symptoms of a diabetic even if you are not diabetic. Just neglect to take the right nutrients and you are well on your way toward eye, foot and organ problems.

You might be asking yourself why your doctor doesn't mention the need for supplementation? Clearly there's no profit in it. The medical community and the media often publish the need for eating a proper diet and exercise. But a proper diet is next to impossible. Our highly refined foods have been stripped of nutrients so most of what you eat are empty calories with high fat and sugar.

Most of the produce on your supermarket shelves have been grown on farms whose soil is largely devoid of nutrients. And if that wasn't enough, that produce has been chemically treated with herbicides, pesticides, coloring and many other unwholesome ingredients.

Supplementation is not just for diabetics. Everyone needs to supplement.

What vitamins should you be taking to avoid diabetic complications? For the diabetic, they are:

-Vitamin C. A lack of it leads to poor wound healing. Foot ulcers and gangrene are the symptoms of a lack of this important vitamin.

-Vitamin E.

-Niacin (B-3).

-B-6 (Pyridoxine).

Among the essential minerals you need to supplement with are:

-Chromium.

-Magnesium.

-Potassium (A better substitute for sodium).

-Manganese.

-Zinc.

Clearly, without these important vitamins and minerals in your diet, you are likely to lose your eyesight and lose feeling in the feet that can lead to amputation. Simply by not getting the essential nutrients, you are vulnerable to many diseases that no drug can address.