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

science.org

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

#71

Post by elcritch »

nradov wrote: post #53
kjeetgill wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> People didn’t have McDonalds and cars ages ago. Barn-raising, (manual) farming, and hunting are hard energy-intensive work. Our calorie output required to survive dropped Not saying I know any better, but at it's face I don't buy this. The change in day-to-day activity doesn't feel like it would account for the difference from just the 80s to now. > while the calorie inputs available cheaply dramatically increased.…

Even a small change in average daily activity can account for a large difference. If you cut your total daily energy expenditure by just 50 kcal (the equivalent of walking less than a mile) while keeping intake the same then you can gain up to 5 lb in one year. Add that up over a few years and suddenly you're obese.

Not to mention increase in sugars in foods; soda pops also drastically increased from 8oz to 20oz. Combined with even small decreases in activity can add up quickly.

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

#72

Post by ars »

"The researchers analyzed records from more than 1.1 million babies born in Denmark between 1997 and 2016, using the country’s comprehensive medical registries to connect data on births, paternal metformin prescriptions, and birth defects."

Did they look for any defect correlated with any drug? Because if they did, random chance alone would find something.

Anyone read the actual study?

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

#73

Post by somenameforme »

nradov wrote: post #53
kjeetgill wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> People didn’t have McDonalds and cars ages ago. Barn-raising, (manual) farming, and hunting are hard energy-intensive work. Our calorie output required to survive dropped Not saying I know any better, but at it's face I don't buy this. The change in day-to-day activity doesn't feel like it would account for the difference from just the 80s to now. > while the calorie inputs available cheaply dramatically increased.…

Even a small change in average daily activity can account for a large difference. If you cut your total daily energy expenditure by just 50 kcal (the equivalent of walking less than a mile) while keeping intake the same then you can gain up to 5 lb in one year. Add that up over a few years and suddenly you're obese.

You're right in one way, but not another. Small increases in caloric content can have a large and counter-intuitive impact due to the nature of systems in equilibrium: just one small soda or candy bar a day above your equilibrium will drive large weight gains.

But you're not factoring in the fact that as your weight increases so does your idle energy costs, meaning that as you gain weight you burn more calories doing nothing. Put another way, if today you burn 1500 calories a day idle, and you start eating 2000 calories a day - at some point you will reach an equilibrium, likely well before you're obese.

I'm also in the camp that thinks that lifestyle explanation for rises in obesity is completely unsubstantiated.

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

#74

Post by alwillis »

idorosen wrote: post #45
kiba wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People weren't obese ages ago, and I am sure that's not because of better nutritional education. It's a multifactorial problem.

People didn’t have McDonalds and cars ages ago. Barn-raising, (manual) farming, and hunting are hard energy-intensive work. Our calorie output required to survive dropped while the calorie inputs available cheaply dramatically increased. That is all part of “overcome metabolic efficiency.” :-)

It's easy to demonize fast-food but that's not even the worst of it.

High-fructose corn syrup has been added to so many foods that didn't have it 10-20 years ago.

The second or third ingredient on a bottle of ketchup, for example, is high-fructose corn syrup. You can get ketchup that doesn't have high-fructose corn syrup added to it; often it's a natural or organic brand that often costs more than the regular brand.

And depending on where someone lives, brands without refined sugars may not be readily available. Google "food desert" and see what comes up.

It was literally impossible a generation or two ago to ingest the amount of carbohydrates the average American gets just from eating prepared and processed foods today.

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

#75

Post by golem14 »

I don't get why this is called rare in the article. It's not called that in the actual study, so the article seems to do some editorializing:

https://www.acpjournals.org/doi/10.7326/M21-4389

Looks like of the kids taken from dads taking metformin, .9% had a genital defect, which seems pretty high to me (defect in control is 0.24%). Granted, not as high as Thalidomide, but still, 9 in 1000 are not great odds.

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

#76

Post by Lammy »

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.

Our leaders have been calling for a population decrease since around the time of the civil rights era, so maybe future-humanity gets a coincidental-but-desired outcome after all?

https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ED050960.pdf#page=10

"The time has come to ask what level of population growth is good for the United States. There was a period when rapid growth made better sense ks we sought to settle a continent and build a modern industrial Nation. And there was a period, in the 1930's, when a low birth rate was cause for concern. But these are new times and we have to question old assumptions and make new choices based on what population growth means for the Nation today."

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

#77

Post by bayesian_horse »

This doesn't change that Metformin is an extremely useful drug. Even people without the official indication take it because it reduces propensity for weight gain and cancer.

Maybe don't take it before trying to get pregnant. Also maybe this needs to get confirmed in larger studies and in other countries.

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

#78

Post by based69 »

Obese women’s offspring have double the risk of hypospadius, and women having babies after 40 have 4x the risk of hypospadius.

Metformin is a drug that men are probably 100x more likely to be on at 45 vs 25. Therefore men on metformin are far more likely to be reproducing with older (and likely obese) women.

I’m not saying this explains all the correlation, I’m just saying if the study doesn’t really make a good effort at addressing these confounders, its not worth reading.

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

#79

Post by pdpi »

fsckboy wrote: post #39
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.

> 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

That’s not very informative without knowing what the average is.

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

#80

Post by AmericanChopper »

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,…

I would say it’s much more harmful to rationalize obesity as something that afflicts people according to their circumstances, rather than what it actually is, a direct outcome of a person’s intentional choices.

It’s also quite harmful to dramatize the solutions out to be something unattainable to many people. They are attainable to all people. The healthiest diet I’ve ever eaten was also the cheapest diet I’ve ever eaten, and almost everybody can get 30 minutes of low intensity exercise a day.

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