Past articles relating to diabetes and Vanadium

Article taken from Dr. Julian Whitaker's Health & Healing
(December 1994, Vol. 4, No. 12)

A Breakthrough Therapy for Diabetes and High Blood Pressure
If you have diabetes or high blood pressure - and even if you don't - have a seat, we've got to talk, You may be able to reduce your insulin medication, or stop taking it altogether, and greatly improve the quality of your life.
First, you need to understand that insulin, the hormone that we all associate with diabetes, is also associated with high blood pressure. Both conditions can be caused by something called "insulin resistance." Here's how"

Most Diabetics Have TOO MUCH Insulin

Most people associate diabetes with insufficient insulin production. This is true, but only for 10% of people diagnosed with diabetes. The far more common form of diabetes - 90% of cases - is not caused by lack of insulin, but by a condition called "insulin resistance." In this form of diabetes your pancreas produces plenty of
insulin, sometimes even too much. But the insulin just doesn't work. It is blocked by a high-fat diet, lack of exercise, and obesity, which cause insulin resistance.

We have recently learned that this same insulin resistance can also bring on high blood pressure, even though patients often do not have elevated blood sugars. You can improve insulin resistance, often dramatically, with a very low-fat, high-carbohydrate diet, exercise and weight loss. This is one of the reasons that both diabetes and high-blood pressure improve so dramatically with these therapies. This is the approach that I explain at length in my book, Reversing Diabetes (Warner Books, my, 1987).
Now, how does vanadium fit into this picture? Best hang on to your chair. Vanadium is a trace element like chromium or zinc, and is essential for cellular activity and the formation of bones and teeth. It also inhibits the synthesis of cholesterol. In large doses, the vanadyl sulfate form of vanadium works remarkably like an oral insulin - in fact, better.

A Trace Mineral That Works Like Insulin

In experimental animals, sufficient doses of the vanadyl sulfate form of vanadium have completely eliminated diabetes and certain forms of high blood pressure, and once it has done that, the condition does not come back. That's right, the condition does not come back - even after the vanadyl sulfate was stopped! 
One of the primary researchers, John McNeill, Ph,D., at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, also demonstrated that when the same dose of vanadyl sulfate was given to normal rats, they maintained their normal blood sugars and blood pressure, but their body needed only half the amount of insulin that was necessary before the vanadyl sulfate treatment. Since too much insulin in your blood is considered a "risk factor" for atherosclerosis, maintaining a normal blood glucose level and blood pressure with less circulating insulin is a definite plus.
I have been recommending vanadyl sulfate to all of my diabetic patients for almost six years, at about 45 mg per day, I now think that 45 mg a day is too low a dose, and recommend 100 to 150 mg per day. I also ask them to switch to a low-fat diet, exercise, and take supplements such as chromium picolinate and magnesium. Most of my diabetic patients improve, but it has been hard to assess the value of vanadyl sulfate alone because of the other changes they make.

The Results Are Often Permanent

One of my patient's results were remarkable on only 45 mg of vanadyl sulfate daily. Over a five-month period, his blood sugar level dropped from 295 to 109 mg/dl (the normal range is 70 to 110 mg/dl). His glycohemoglobin, a measurement of the glucose deposited into the protein of the red blood cells, fell from an abnormal 11.2% to 6.3% (normal range is 4,4% to 6.1%) with no other diabetic medications or insulin. Vanadyl sulfate seems to work not only like another insulin, but also makes your cells more responsive to insulin. The mechanism seems to be vigorous activation of the insulin receptor sites - both on the surface of the cell and within the cell itself.
But the truly remarkable finding is that once the animal (or human) responds to vanadyl sulfate, the beneficial effect may be permanent!
Dr. McNeill has demonstrated in diabetic animals that a three-week treatment with vanadyl sulfate eliminated the diabetic condition. Remarkably, 13 weeks after the vanadyl sulfate was stopped, and after most of the mineral had been excreted by the body, the diabetes did not come back! It is as if the mineral came into the system and unlocked a back door to the cell, a door that no one had even suspected was there, allowing the body to clear the blood of glucose with very little insulin. Even more incredibly, once that door has been opened by vanadyl, it seems to stay open! 
The first human studies have just been completed. Dr. Luciano Rossetti from Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York City gave 150 mg of vanadyl sulfate for three weeks to a small number of non-insulin dependent diabetics. These
patients had marked insulin resistance. After the vanadyl treatment there was
significant reduction of insulin resistance and more efficient clearing of the blood glucose. He tested these patients two weeks after the therapy was stopped, and found that the effect was still evident. Dr. Rossetti concluded," . . .vanadyl may provide an additional option for the treatment of diabetes."
These findings are too good to sit on, especially since in the hundreds of animal studies and the small number of human studies, there has been no significant toxicity.

Recommendations

I have the following suggestions to help those of you with diabetes or high blood pressure:

1. Get on the Whitaker Program of a low-fat diet, exercise, and the core program of nutritional supplements - it's your ticket to a long, healthy, and illness-free life. 

2 If you have diabetes,' I strongly suggest you read Reversing Diabetes, available in book stores, public libraries, and by mail order by contacting the Phillips Health & Healing Center.

For a bibliography of references , send a SASE to Phillips Publishing, Customer Service - Diabetes, 7811 Monitors Road, Potomac, MD 20854. Discuss the references with your physician, and under his or her supervision, give vanadyl sulfate a try. Vanadyl sulfate is available in health food stores (KAL and Brickers are common brands). I recommend 100 to 150 mg in divided doses with meals. There may be some gastrointestinal disturbance from this. If so, reduce or stop the supplement and then gradually increase it.

3. Before starting with vanadyl sulfate, get a complete blood analysis, especially glucose, glycohemoglobin and C-peptide (which is a measure of how much insulin your body is producing)

Have your doctor closely follow your course with repeat measurements of the blood about every two weeks. Keep your results and send them to me care of Phillips Publishing, Customer Service-Diabetes, 7811 Montrose Road, Potomac, MD 20854. I will be tracking the results, and will report them to you and others as they become available. The combined progress of several thousand patients working with their physicians will do more to speed up adoption of this therapy than anything else. 

One thing is certain: Unless you take matters into your own hands, this breakthrough 

Editor: Julian Whitaker, M.D.