On the subject of blood sugar, do you advise taking glucomannan for patients with type 2 diabetes? If so, how much and when?

Kelsey Marksteiner:  I will tell you that I don’t use that all too often. I more so use anti-inflammatory types of stuff with my type 2 diabetes patients or just patients with blood sugar issues in the first place. I don’t have many patients. I’ve had some in the past, but not too many, who actually have full-blown type 2 diabetes, so I don’t use that usually. I’m kind of usually preventing that kind of thing, so I get people more so with prediabetes or just insulin resistance type problems. Typically what I do is focus on the anti-inflammatory type of stuff, so I would use curcumin for sure. Alpha-lipoic acid can also be helpful for glucose levels. I actually use prebiotics a lot, too. That, I think, can really help, and just different types of fibers, I think, can really work quite well for making someone that has a little bit of blood sugar issues do a lot better with their glucose levels. That’s typically where I start. I don’t know if I’ve actually ever used glucomannan unless someone has already come to me on it. There is some research on it, showing that it can be useful, so I’m certainly not opposed to it, for sure. And if you’ve done it and it works well for your clients who have type 2 diabetes, then I’d say go for it, but personally I just don’t have all that much experience in using it, so I can’t tell you how much I’m using and when and all that kind of stuff.