Latest Update on Metformin

[Vince]

I think the main benefit for everyone should be diets that do not spike your insulate levels. Which is of course low carb.

I almost forgot to mention, diet soda will turn you into a type 2 diabetic.

Diet soda and diabetes: Research and considerations

Sugary drinks are a known cause of obesity and blood glucose problems, such as diabetes. Are diet sodas a safe option with diabetes? Artificial sweeteners may help diabetes develop. This article gives information on diet soda, weight gain, sweeteners, and alternatives.

www.medicalnewstoday.com

 

[captain]

I think the diet soda thing was over with years ago. The explanation was that artificial sweeteners was sweeter than sugar. This causes the release of glucagon-like peptide-1 when it touches the tongue. This was to cause insulin resistance and make you fat. If this was the case the semaglutide would be making people gain weight.

 

[Vince]

Anyway, open-access full-text & PDF is available for the paper at AHA Stroke:
Sugar- and Artificially Sweetened Beverages and the Risks of Incident Stroke and Dementia

They apparently did not segregate the data by artificial sweetener type (and probably couldn't, being a recall survey):
Artificially sweetened beverages are typically sweetened with non-nutritive sweeteners, such as saccharin, acesulfame, aspartame, neotame, or sucralose. At the time of FFQ administration in this study, saccharin, acesulfame-K, and aspartame were Food and Drug Administration approved, whereas sucralose was approved in 1999, neotame in 2002, and stevia in 2008.

Stevia is not "artificial", but it's also non-factor in this data set for sweetened beverages, and has only round-off-error market share even today.

The shift away from aspartame could be just demand-based, or driven by focus panel results, but I wouldn't rule out some fire below that particular smoke signal.

Any canned or bottled beverage has other confounders as well. Perhaps the biggest is what water they use, and that varies by both bottling plant and licensed formulation terms. Municipal water is at high risk of containing chloramine, which may actually be more adverse to gut flora than either sugar or artificial sweeteners.

We lately discovered that the bagged ice we buy is not only from a muni water source, but the ice maker adds more chloramine to it. How's that credit card commercial go?
What's in your water?

 

[Fernando Almaguer]

Yes, I'm a long term metformin user. I believe I've been using it now for over 10 years. I use it for longevity benefits. It does keep my A1C at 5.1. I'm hoping to get it lower than 5.

what is your dose, I take 500 mg at night
sometimes i use 750 mg

 

[Vince]

what is your dose, I take 500 mg at night
sometimes i use 750 mg

Metformin ER 750 mg twice a day.

 

[mcs]

Urgent: Does anyone know if Metformin discontinuation can cause rebound hyperglycemia?

I am not diabetic but since July, had been taking Metformin for anti-aging, cardiovascular and many of its other benefits, however, because it was tanking my testosterone levels to all-time lows (see my post upthread and here) , I decided to stop it.

Now, after a couple days, my glucose readings have spiked up 20 or so points over my usual readings. Is it common in pts. to experience a type of *rebound hyperglycemic effect when stopping it cold turkey? If so, is it transient?

Could it be that it actually causes stores of glucose in the liver to remain high - Metformin reduces the ability of the liver to release glucose - so an elevation in morning levels is to be expected as your liver is released from the restraint and needs to dump the excess once Metformin is stopped abruptly.

I had posted before complaining that Metformin was doing nothing to affect my blood sugar levels. This effect proves that was wrong.

Perhaps taper slowly off is better?

*glucose levels higher than before taking the drug

 

[Fernando Almaguer]

Urgent: Does anyone know if Metformin discontinuation can cause rebound hyperglycemia?

I am not diabetic but since July, had been taking Metformin for anti-aging, cardiovascular and many of its other benefits, however, because it was tanking my testosterone levels to all-time lows (see my post upthread and here) , I decided to stop it.

Now, after a couple days, my glucose readings have spiked up 20 or so points over my usual readings. Is it common in pts. to experience a type of rebound hyperglycemic effect when stopping it cold turkey? If so, is it transient?

Could it be that it actually causes stores of glucose in the liver to remain high - Metformin reduces the ability of the liver to release glucose - so an elevation in morning levels is to be expected as your liver is released from the restraint and needs to dump the excess once Metformin is stopped abruptly.

I had posted before complaining that Metformin was doing nothing to affect my blood sugar levels. This effect proves that was wrong.

Perhaps taper slowly off is better?

Did you talk to the doctor's office or pharmacy. They might know... but good question. Someone here might know. I do not unfortunately. I would guess no but your situation seems different.

 

[mcs]

A recent metformin study casts doubts on longevity indications ​

Thoughts? ​

 

[Vince]

A recent metformin study casts doubts on longevity indications ​

Thoughts? ​

I'm sure as you know it's easy to find flaws in everything. But if you're pre-diabetic, use metformin clean up your diet. You should outlive anyone who is not diabetic and is not using Metformin. The way the government changed the rules and said fat free is the way to go. It caused a country of diabetics, people with heart disease and I should probably add cancer. Thank you big brother.

 

[BigTex]

I know one thing about metformin, I can't take it for more than a month because it causes me to drop weight so fast. I cut 10lbs in a month eating 5000cal/d. Stopped it yesterday.

 

[Guided_by_Voices]

A recent metformin study casts doubts on longevity indications ​

Thoughts? ​

This is a classic example of single-variable fallacy. No one who is health-conscious is going to eat or act in such a way as to let their so-called diabetes progress, or use metformin alone as an anti-aging get-out-of-jail-free pill. Personally, I micro-dose metformin (250mg) on the occasions usually no more than 1-2 per week where I have a highish carb meal. As best I can tell this gives most of the benefits (leanness, micro-biome profile, sugar uptake) without likely downsides such as chronic mTOR inhibition, etc. But this is one of 50 or more different things a health-focused person would do so separating out the effect of one thing is likely impossible in the real world.