Blood sugar supplements are designed to support your body’s natural blood sugar regulation. Blood sugar is a vital part of our health. If it gets thrown off, we can develop diabetes.
A surprisingly high percentage of the population already has prediabetes, though most of the time, this disease goes undiagnosed.
You can support your body’s natural ability to regulate your blood sugar with a supporting supplement. While these supplements won’t cure diabetes or prediabetes, they can be helpful alongside a dietary change.
Here are some of the best supplements on the market for regulating blood sugar:
Our advisory panel and our research team rank the best health products and supplements based on performance, label accuracy, and the efficacy of the ingredients in the products.
- Best Overall: GluControl
- Best for weight loss: Dr. Bo Glucose Support
- Best for women: NOW Glucose Metabolic Support
- Supplement with probiotics: Hyperbiotics Glucose Support
- Arazo Blood Sugar Support
Research
Rankings
Last updated: September 20, 2022
Blood sugar supplements considered: 18
Hours of research: 36
Experts reviewed: 6
Scientific papers referenced: 10
| IMAGE | PRODUCT | |
|---|---|---|
Best Overall  | 1. GluControl
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Best for weight loss  | 2. Dr. Bo Glucose Support
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Best for women  | 3. NOW Glucose Metabolic Support
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Supplement with probiotics  | 4. Hyperbiotics Glucose Support
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 | 5. Arazo Blood Sugar Support
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 | 6. Premium Blood Sugar Support Supplement by PurePremium
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 | 7. Blood Sugar Lowering Supplement by AmericonPlus
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 | 8. Premium Blood Sugar Support Supplement by Sunergetic
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 | 9. Nutrivein Premium Berberine
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 | 10. LifeSeasons Glucose Stabili-T
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1. GluControl
GluControl is specifically designed to help maintain healthy blood sugar levels. It uses a targeted blend of all-natural ingredients, including cinnamon, lion’s mane, and milk thistle, to better regulate blood sugar, all without extraneous ingredients. This precision blend makes it our number one pick.
2. Jarrow Formulas Glucose Optimizer
Jarrow Formulas Glucose Optimizer – Jarrow Formulas makes an incredibly robust blood sugar supplement with a huge array of active ingredients.
It sustains core biochemical functions with vitamins C, E, B6, and B12, plus trace minerals like selenium, chromium, and magnesium. Add to that herbal extracts from bitter melon, gymnema sylvestre, and banaba leaf and you’ve got an extremely potent glucose support supplement.
3. Pure Encapsulations Glucose Support
Pure Encapsulations Glucose Support Formula – If you want a targeted and carefully formulated blood sugar support supplement, Pure Encapsulations is the way to go.
It supports healthy blood sugar levels with chromium, gymnema sylvestre, ginseng, ALA, eleuthero, and maitake mushroom, and nothing in the way of ancillary or unnecessary ingredients. Pure Encapsulations is the perfect choice if all you want are the most potent and impactful herbal extracts for glucose support.
4. Hyperbiotics Glucose Support
Inspired by the latest research on the relationship between gut bacteria and glucose control, Hyperbiotics uses a blend of seven different probiotic bacteria plus banaba leaf extract and vitamin D.
It’s a blend of ingredients designed to work alongside the probiotics, making it a solid choice if you want a more advanced approach to glucose control.
5. Arazo Blood Sugar Support
This is another scientifically formulated supplement that includes 20 different ingredients. It features a unique combination of ingredients like licorice, cayenne, and juniper berry.
While this supplement is designed to support your blood sugar levels first and foremost, it can also support weight loss and reduce sugar absorption.
6. PurePremium Blood Sugar Support
PurePremium uses a blend of conventional vitamins and minerals, like vitamin C, vitamin E, magnesium, zinc, and chromium, alongside a selection of glucose-oriented supplements: banaba, guggul, bitter melon, and cinnamon being the principal ones.
As with some of the other broad-based glucose control supplements, it’s a good fallback if more focused supplements aren’t giving you the results you want.
7. AmericonPlus Triglucomin
This blood sugar supplement contains many different ingredients, including cinnamon, chromium, and white mulberry leaf extract. Because it includes so many different ingredients, it may work for you when other supplements have not.
It aims to make your blood sugar more consistent and is formulated to be taken with every meal.
8. Sunergetic Blood Sugar Support
With cinnamon and a variety of other herbs, this supplement can support your blood sugar levels and overall health. It features a unique blend of over 15 herbs, including things like yarrow flower and cinnamon.
Plus, this supplement is made in a GMP-certified facility.
9. Nutrivein Premium Berberine
This supplement relies mostly on cinnamon and berberine to work. Both of these ingredients are proven to work in a scientific setting, but they may not work for everyone.
Still, if you’ve never tried a blood sugar review previously, this one may work appropriately for you. Plus, it’s inexpensive.
10. LifeSeasons Glucose Stabili-T
LifeSeasons takes a multi-ingredient approach to glucose control, leaning on extracts both from common supplements like fenugreek, cinnamon, and banaba, to more obscure ingredients like vanadium, holy basil, and gotu kola leaf, for its glucose control effects.
This broad-based approach might be worth a shot if simpler blood sugar supplements with fewer ingredients aren’t cutting it for you.
Category winners
Best blood sugar supplement overall: Essential Elements GluControl
Essential Elements uses a blend of natural extracts from cinnamon, berberine, milk thistle, and lion’s mane, plus metabolism-boosting supplements like chromium picolinate, to modulate glucose balance in your body. The comprehensive approach to this blood sugar supplement makes it our top recommendation.
Best blood sugar supplement for the keto diet: Essential Elements GluControl
If you want to ensure your glucose control is optimized when on the keto diet, the carefully-designed ingredients in Essential Elements GluControl is the way to go. With potent compounds like cinnamon extract, lion’s mane mushroom, and milk thistle seed, it’s built for the kind of metabolic flexibility you need for the ketogenic diet.
Best blood sugar supplement for women: Pure Encapsulations Glucose Support
Pure Encapsulation’s use of of B vitamins plus banaba, gymnema sylvestre, and a few trace minerals makes it a focused glucose control supplement that’s great for women looking for a targeted approach that integrates well with other supplements.
Best blood sugar supplement with cinnamon: Essential Elements GluControl
Cinnamon extract exerts a surprising amount of influence on glucose metabolism, and it’s one of the simplest and most well-known supplements for blood sugar control. Essential Elements GluControl does a great job of integrating the effects of cinnamon alongside other glucose control supplements, so if you want a supplement for metabolic control that leverages cinnamon, look no further than Essential Elements.
Best blood sugar supplement for weight loss: Jarrow Formulas Glucose Support
If you’re on a diet, the sheer range of biologically active compounds in Jarrow Formulas Glucose Support is hard to turn down: its ingredients are designed to act on nearly every level of your body’s ability to regulate glucose metabolism. Healthier blood sugar levels are one perk of losing weight, and Jarrow Formulas is your best shot for amplifying these benefits.
Best blood sugar supplement with probiotics: Hyperbiotics Glucose Support
Gut bacteria have a big impact on how your body absorbs carbohydrates, which in turn affects your blood sugar. When it comes to blood sugar supplements that leverage the benefits of probiotic bacteria, there’s no better option than Hyperbiotics Glucose Support. With five billion colony-forming units of seven strains of probiotic bacteria plus banaba leaf and vitamin D, it’s the best supplement for leveraging gut bacteria for metabolic health.
Who should buy a blood sugar supplement?
Blood sugar supplements are designed to help your body naturally regulate your blood sugar. They are particularly helpful for a few specific categories of people:
People who want to go beyond diet and exercise for metabolic health. Many people have trouble regulating their blood sugar optimally, which can lead to prediabetes, metabolic syndrome, and eventually type 2 diabetes (1).
Exercise and diet can make a huge difference, but supplements for glucose support might make an extra difference if these two alone aren’t doing it for you.
These pills are not a cure for diabetes, but their natural ingredients may help even out fluctuations in blood sugar.
People who are overweight or obese. Carrying around extra fat mass has a negative impact on your body’s ability to regulate glucose levels, so a glucose support supplement might be worth considering if your weight is higher than it should be.
People who may be prediabetic. Blood sugar support and glucose support supplements are primarily targeted at people who are prediabetic, meaning they have troubling trends in their metabolism of blood sugar, but do not have totally dysregulated insulin function (which would be full-blown diabetes).
How we ranked
Our blood sugar supplement rankings are supported by a comprehensive set of criteria that combine quality and efficacy.
Evidence of quality ingredients. We sought out products made in FDA-certified labs and facilities, and only ranked products made made in the USA, UK, or Australia.
In these countries, certain dangerous ingredients are banned and higher manufacturing quality standards are employed.
Proven, natural ingredients. After reviewing the scientific literature, our research team categorized the range of natural ingredients with good evidence supporting their ability to help regulate blood glucose. This included compounds like cinnamon, banaba, berberine, and a handful of medicinal mushrooms.
After checking for safety, we weighted these ingredients by the strength of evidence behind them. Supplements that make it to the top of our list had several of the most effective compound on our list.
Ease of use and effective dosage. For practical purposes, ease of use and dosage are also important. Most people don’t want to take multiple pills a day, and many ingredients are only effective once their dosage hits a certain level.
After aggregating top products across all these criteria, we had our final rankings of the best blood sugar supplements.
FAQ
Q: Do blood sugar supplements work?
A: Yes, there are a variety of ingredients that do work to some extent when taken long-term. Cinnamon is the most obvious example of this and has the most scientific research available to back it up.
However, other effective ingredients exist as well, such as berberine. Most supplements out there include one of these ingredients, but this isn’t always necessarily true.
The key to choosing a blood sugar supplement that works is to pay attention to the ingredients. Some are scientifically proven, and some are not. The potency and amounts also matter.
Generally, you should stick with a single supplement for at least three months before calling it off. It can take that long and even longer for it to work correctly.
Q: What do blood sugar support supplements do?
A: Blood sugar support supplements work in a variety of ways, depending on the exact ingredients in the supplement. Most help your body’s natural blood sugar regulation systems work even better. They may improve your insulin sensitivity, which makes your body react to less insulin. This helps counteract the effects of diabetes, which does the exact opposite. Sometimes, these supplements may improve the amount of glucose your cells use, effectively lowering your blood sugar.
Others might have secondary effects that help lower your blood sugar over time, like making you feel fuller so that you lose weight. Others include minerals and vitamins to support your hormonal level, which may also affect your insulin levels.
The exact way these supplements work depends on the ingredients. Luckily, they can work in a variety of different ways. Therefore, if one doesn’t work for you, you may be able to switch to a different supplement that works differently.
Q: Can blood sugar supplements reverse diabetes?
A: No – not by themselves, at least. There is a large variety of ways you can help keep your diabetes in check. Blood sugar supplements are just one of these ways. While they can help lower your fasting blood sugar by a decent amount, they are not a cure. They also work differently depending on the exact cause of your diabetes and what other interventions you’re trying.
They can be a substantial part of a larger plan that includes dietary changes and exercise. Many supplements work great when paired with these more traditional interventions. But they are not going to reverse diabetes all by themselves.
Q: How long does it take for a blood sugar supplement to work?
A: It usually takes about three months for a blood sugar supplement to reach peak effectiveness. It will likely start working before then, but you probably won’t notice the full effects until around three months of taking the supplement regularly.
Because it takes a decent amount of time before the supplement starts working, it is crucial to stick with a supplement for the full three-month period even if you aren’t noticing much difference.
If you wait for three months and still aren’t happy with the results, consider switching to a different supplement with different ingredients. Different ingredients lower your blood sugar in different ways. So, if one doesn’t work, there is still a decent chance that another one will. Your body just might not have reacted particularly well to the first one you tried.
Do I have to take blood sugar supplements with meals?
Sometimes. Some ingredients work right away for a short period. These ingredients should be taken alongside a meal so that they work on the food you eat. If you take them without eating, the effects will wear off before any food is digested, which results in them doing little to nothing.
Not all supplements work like this, though. Some ingredients work for a decently long amount of time. These supplements can be taken in the morning and work for the rest of the day.
Check the dosage instructions for the particular supplement you’re taking for the best way forward with your supplement. If, when you take pills, is essential to you, be sure to check the dosage instructions before you purchase a supplement.
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Recap
Blood sugar supplements can be part of diabetes or prediabetes management strategies. Many contain scientifically-proven ingredients that may lower your blood sugar, like cinnamon and berberine. These supplements usually take about three months to work, and the degree that they work varies from person to person.
Luckily, there are quite a few different supplements out there. If one doesn’t work, odds are a different one will.
For BodyNutrition’s #1 recommended blood sugar supplement, click here.
