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

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

#61

Post by strken »

nradov wrote: post #52
ecf wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Why was this down voted? You're not wrong. Regardless of whether we have a private or socialized healthcare system, we simply won't be able to afford to continue delivering high quality care to everyone with chronic conditions caused by bad dietary choices and sedentary lifestyle. The resources just aren't there so we will increasingly have to ration care.

Why? Playing the devil's advocate here, 42% of the US population is obese right now. Why is it going to be impossible if that hits 60%, or 80%?

I ask this as someone with a BMI of 23 who puts a reasonable amount of effort into not becoming obese or overweight again. The personal benefits of not dying from cardiac arrest at 55 are very obvious, but I'm not clear on why healthcare systems won't be able to cope.

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

#62

Post by akomtu »

mensetmanusman wrote: post #28

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

I believe this is intentional. If the ruling class wanted workers to live long, they'd force them to switch to oatmeals, fruits and water, while sugar would be a substance competing in price with cocaine.

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

#63

Post by regpertom »

giantg2 wrote: post #21
brenainn wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

True, the field is vast. But I expect that a doctor should know the basics of a common condition. If they aren't counseling diabetics about carbs... wtf is going on? It would be different if it were a rare or complex topic, but even then the Epic system that most places use have standard printouts with information for patients.

It might be much like a dentist lecturing you on brushing your teeth. You’re in there because you don’t. The dentist might resent this, stuck with disgusting idiot after disgusting idiot in their mind. Alan watts says the dentist should make peace with it. Maybe you know you’re meant to brush your teeth but you don’t remember to, or a tooth fell out after brushing once and you thought it caused it etc. Some people avoid the dentist completely because of being ashamed of that lecture/disappointment. Then there’s the seeming popular “victim blaming is a hate crime” angle of doing anything more than prescribing something. Anecdotally, the super rare, in tales: old man doctor, who calls you a dumbass and tells you how it is straight is a treasured item. Various comedians have bits as such. Much like a professor who sees right through your self deceptions and justifications. They want their delusions shattered. To other people though the insolence and condescension that they perceive from that same person is seen as trash, doctors and professors should of course empathise with me instead of putting me down kind of thing. They don’t want their delusions handled too roughly. Trash or treasure. It’s not an even field though because if you did the “wrong” thing, the former doesn’t get the most useful help to them but the latter may try and bring down professional consequences upon thee. Which is probably why the mystical “no heck’s given” doctor is always old/bitter in the stories.

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

#64

Post by sp332 »

adewinter wrote: post #60
ecf wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

You're saying that it's a guarantee that every single healthcare system (in the world?) will break down because of _sugar consumption_? Seriously?

Diabetes is really rough on the organs. Especially once the kidneys go, you need dialysis 3 times per week and the treatment takes hours. If a substantial fraction of the population needs that treatment, it's going to be rough. Plus the eye surgeries for glaucoma, and other kinds of organ failure.

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

#65

Post by voldacar »

adewinter wrote: post #60
ecf wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

You're saying that it's a guarantee that every single healthcare system (in the world?) will break down because of _sugar consumption_? Seriously?

That plus the inverted population pyramid. It's certainly plausible

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

#66

Post by akomtu »

idorosen wrote: post #40
ceeplusplus wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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,…

No, it's the lack of will power, with few exceptions. Most of the food these days, even expensive food, has atrocious amount of calories, so to burn one cookie-worth of energy one would have to do a stupid amount of weight lifting. For example, lifting a 50 lbs dumbbell 3 feet high burns just 5 calories, while a small cookie I have on my plate has 200 calories. That's 40 times to lift that dumbbell just to burn 1 cookie.

Edit: or let's take a look at cheese. I've found some pretty expensive cheese in my fridge, packed into small cube boxes, because otherwise its price per pound would be offensive. So we might expect that cheese would do better than cookies. The nutrinion facts label on its reverse begins with "serving size: 2 table spoons, 120 calories" - a borderline fradulent label that's trying to hide the fact that the small chunk of cheese has 600 calories in it.

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

#67

Post by jessriedel »

KMag wrote: post #15

Metformin is also sometimes used to induce ovulation in non-obese women of childbearing age with polycystic ovarian syndrome.[0] Luckily, this study seems to only show an effect if taken within the 90 day window before conception, so it seems to be doing something to the sperm, and not causing genetic changes. Also, of course, we'd want to see corroborating studies. [0] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC42…

> it seems to be doing something to the sperm, and not causing genetic changes.

To be clear, spermatogenesis takes roughly 75-120 days, so this is consistent with metformin causing genetic changes to the sperm when or after they are formed, with those genetic changes being propagated through the germ line to children conceived by the sperm. But it's true that the (very preliminary) data does not suggest that this is causing permanent genetic changes in the father.

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

#68

Post by ako »

akomtu wrote: post #62
mensetmanusman wrote: post #28

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

I believe this is intentional. If the ruling class wanted workers to live long, they'd force them to switch to oatmeals, fruits and water, while sugar would be a substance competing in price with cocaine.

So the ruling class is forcing you to eat sugar, and you don't have the option to choose for healthier food?

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

#69

Post by somenameforme »

hirundo wrote: 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…

IMO relative percents should really not be used when trying to consider the impact of things because it gives you no clue about it. If the rate of something is 1 in 1 million then a 40% increase means your odds of having an issue go from negligible to negligible, but a 40% increase makes it sound much scarier. I think the reason for that is that a 40% increase subconsciously tickles our "40% of" intuition, even when we consciously understand that's not what it means.

That said in this case the 40% is genuinely scary, because it's a jump from 3.3% with birth defects to 5.2%, or in other words nearly 1 in 50 babies (1.9% of births) standing to be affected by this issue. Although just quickly skimming their numbers, the sample size is unclear to me. That jump was driven by only 13 birth defects among those taking the drug, based on what the article says is a sample of 1.1 million births.

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

#70

Post by behringer »

akomtu wrote: post #62
mensetmanusman wrote: post #28

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

I believe this is intentional. If the ruling class wanted workers to live long, they'd force them to switch to oatmeals, fruits and water, while sugar would be a substance competing in price with cocaine.

Of course. But as it turns out, the medical industry is a great way of moving wealth from the middle class to the wealthy during end of life.
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