There is no way anyone could accuse me of being a single disease-single nutrient type of person. Avoiding or managing any chronic disease requires a complete lifestyle approach consisting of diet, environmental toxin avoidance, exercise, stress management and a good base of supplementation (multi, fish oils, D, greens drink).
That being said, it is hard to ignore the benefits of magnesium when it comes to sugar handling in the body and subsequent risk of diabetes / prediabetes. This is also a very common mineral deficiency in today’s society, yet is needed in some 300 different enzymes in the human body. Stress burns it out of our bodies. Low quality multivitamins (i.e. one per day, pharmaceutical prenatals, etc…) do little to help our bodies recover needed magnesium.
So, unquestionably, a good quality multivitamin is a start. Most of the better ones will contain 100-200 mg in a serving (which should be multiple capsules / tablets in a serving). 400 mg / day in divided doses is a pretty decent level of supplementation. Take too much at one time and you’ll get loose stools because you’ve exceeded your body’s ability to absorb it (which is great if you happen to deal with chronic constipation!).
In this particular study, 77% of diabetic patients were deficient in magnesium. Given how helpful magnesium is to helping control blood sugar, this is inexcusable.
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0261561411000033