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Rare genital defects seen in sons of men taking major diabetes drug

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31–40 of 234 posts

Re: Rare genital defects seen in sons of men taking major diabetes drug

#31
post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wow, if they aren't suggesting dietary and exercise based solutions first, that's a huge red flag. Find a new doctor.

Prescriptions of diet and exercise are ineffective because many obese / type 2 diabetic people can't exercise self-control. That's why they're obese in the first place. It's way easier to take a pill than cut to 1500 calories a day for 2 years.

Some people do change. Point in case would be grandparent(?) stating that they changed to a low carb diet that fixed their issue.

Re: Rare genital defects seen in sons of men taking major diabetes drug

#32
post #2

Metformin is the first resort in diabetes treatment. If it proves to truly increase birth defects by 40% that may have to change. It was my doctor's first resort for me, but the side effects were too severe and I stopped it. He vaguely mentioned that it would help if I lost weight, but made no mention of what actually resolved my diabetes, a low carb diet. I hope that becomes the first resort. Apparently around here…

Virta Research has peer reviewed research supporting this approach. They have been successful with getting many type-2 diabetes patients into remission primarily using low carb diets. If you're insulin resistant then the first step has to be eliminating basically all sugar.

https://www.virtahealth.com/resource-type/research

Re: Rare genital defects seen in sons of men taking major diabetes drug

#33
post #26
post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wow, if they aren't suggesting dietary and exercise based solutions first, that's a huge red flag. Find a new doctor.

High blood sugar levels are doing damage right now . Nothing wrong with starting on a therapy while trying to institute a diet and exercise change. The doctor would be negligent if they said "let's try diet and exercise", then after 6 months of damage say "nope, that didn't work, let's try metformin".

Yeah, I sort of mentioned that in one of the other comments. Even when they start the meds, they should be trying to fix the underlying cause like dietary issues. Hopefully it would help make the medication more effective.

It's something else to not even counsel a diabetic about carbs.

Re: Rare genital defects seen in sons of men taking major diabetes drug

#34
post #27

I only knew Metformin by name from HNers using it as an anti-aging wonder drug over the years: https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&qu...

It is also beginning to be prescribed by many of the subscription medication/doctor businesses that are springing up, powered by VC cash and looking to build strong forward flowing subscription businesses. Their model is: - find areas that aren’t medically serious (speaking relatively, and in relation to life threatening - erectile dysfunction and male pattern baldness) - run people through online questionnaires - ge…

Do you see this as a bad thing? As someone who doesn't have any insurance, I'm extremely grateful for these. I don't want to have to go through the current medical racket where unless you pay a doc $300 you won't be allowed to purchase the medication you want. And then of course there's the follow up appointments, a "med check" where they can bill you $150 every 90 to 180 days just to hear you say, "yep, things are fine."

Re: Rare genital defects seen in sons of men taking major diabetes drug

#35
post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wow, if they aren't suggesting dietary and exercise based solutions first, that's a huge red flag. Find a new doctor.

>Find a new doctor. why would someone need to go to a doctor to tell them that

If they are in that situation it stands to reason they might not have that knowledge. It seems the grandparent(?) is an example of that when it came to low carb diet.

Re: Rare genital defects seen in sons of men taking major diabetes drug

#37
post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wow, if they aren't suggesting dietary and exercise based solutions first, that's a huge red flag. Find a new doctor.

One of my scariest adulthood realizations is that doctors are like everybody else; fallible. And that being certified means you're good at studying, but doesn't always mean you're good at what you've studied. Not trying to discredit medical professionals or the amount of work they put in. I'm sure the majority are intelligent, conscientious and good at their jobs.

Try and Spend some time on any forum related to chronic illness. Tons of doctors who don’t keep up with even basic research / guidelines on their own speciality.

Re: Rare genital defects seen in sons of men taking major diabetes drug

#38

It’s sad seeing the crazy downstream multigenerational damage that massive sugar consumption is causing as obesity rates reach 50%. Good luck future humanity.

It’s an extremely sad situation and will guarantee every single healthcare system eventually breaks down.

Re: Rare genital defects seen in sons of men taking major diabetes drug

#39
post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wow, if they aren't suggesting dietary and exercise based solutions first, that's a huge red flag. Find a new doctor.

One of my scariest adulthood realizations is that doctors are like everybody else; fallible. And that being certified means you're good at studying, but doesn't always mean you're good at what you've studied. Not trying to discredit medical professionals or the amount of work they put in. I'm sure the majority are intelligent, conscientious and good at their jobs.

> Not trying to discredit medical professionals... I'm sure the majority are ... good at their jobs

I'm sure half of them are below average

Re: Rare genital defects seen in sons of men taking major diabetes drug

#40
post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wow, if they aren't suggesting dietary and exercise based solutions first, that's a huge red flag. Find a new doctor.

Prescriptions of diet and exercise are ineffective because many obese / type 2 diabetic people can't exercise self-control. That's why they're obese in the first place. It's way easier to take a pill than cut to 1500 calories a day for 2 years.

It is a harmful stereotype to label obese people as lacking willpower as you have done. Many obese people don’t have the resources (time, money) or tools (nutrition understanding) to improve their situation. Many have metabolic or familial history of obesity which has both physical and psychological (normalization) impact on their ability to control their weight. The former can be helped with diet and/or medication, the latter often causes them not to seek help.

Most people in the US live in poverty and make marginal spending food decisions based on money per dopamine reward unit rather than optimizing nutrition. McDonalds is cheap and unhealthy; fresh fruits and vegetables and the free time to educate oneself on proper nutrition, then cook healthy meals and do meal prep often cost more money and time than most can afford. As does proper exercise when you’re working 12 hours per day trying to make ends meet.

A less harmful way to phrase your point is that medication can help people who self-medicate with food overcome metabolic efficiency. I lost 40 pounds on semaglutide (Wegovy) so far this past year and dropping; exercise and diet alone didn’t work for me. I hope to eventually not rely on medication to maintain a healthy weight.

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