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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

#171

Post by nradov »

eric4smith wrote: post #165
macilacilove wrote: post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Type 2 diabetes is not curable with diet. Some (but not all) cases of type 2 can be _prevented_ by proper diet (i.e. avoiding obesity). There is no known diet that cures any type of existing diabetes.

The thing is, Type 2 is not even a disease. Its just an imbalance of glucose. So there is really nothing to cure, its just about bringing back your blood glucose levels in balance so that the liver and pancreas can begin to function correctly again. Of course there could be irreversible damage to those organs and that would be really bad (Several relatives who died of this). But you are partly right. There can be rem…

Type-2 diabetes is characterized more by insulin resistance than by an imbalance of glucose. And glucose isn't really something you "balance" in relation to another substance anyway. In order to be metabolically healthy you have to keep glucose levels in the appropriate range, and that will generally prevent the onset of insulin resistance.

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

#172

Post by rscho »

dhmallon wrote: post #145
rscho wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The bonferoni correction is known to be overly restrictive, though. But yes, probably many more models were fit and results are questionable. The author will at least be able to claim a Science paper... Also, adjustment of the p-value doesn't do anything to solve the flaws of hypothesis testing. But that's another debate entirely.

I believe it was published in Annals of Internal Medicine (impact factor of ~4). The link is to a news article in Science discussing the paper.

Ah, then I understand better. Was wondering why such a paper would be in Science.

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

#173

Post by mxkopy »

inglor_cz wrote: post #101
alwillis wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From a big picture, socio-economic point of view, yes, the ruling class (Fortune 500 CEOs and elected officials they donate to and lobby) are essentially forcing the poor, the unaware, the average Joe to eat a diet full of high-fructose corn syrup and other carbohydrates, which happens to be produced by giant agricultural companies. Corn is a subsidized crop by the US Department of Agriculture—we pay farmers to grow…

"are essentially forcing" Except for the fact that poor immigrants from Bangladesh or Africa do not suffer from the same problem in the first generation, because they are still used to buying staples in the market and cooking traditional meals at home . The same can actually be seen in UK and Western Europe. The deadly fact that is compounding the situation is that cooking skills haven't been passed down in a large p…

>Except for the fact that poor immigrants from Bangladesh or Africa do not suffer from the same problem in the first generation

Give them a a couple years or so, and many of them will want to live the American lifestyle - eating out every day, and stocking their pantry with snacks they see on TV. The ones that don't face the consequences of being obviously foreign.

In America, marketing and psychological hackery are second only to law in terms of "forcing" people to do things.

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

#174

Post by kadoban »

giantg2 wrote: post #153
kadoban wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Gp probably could have stopped after: > Prescriptions of diet and exercise are ineffective Which seems to be true. If any advice your doctor could give yields no measurable difference, is there really a point to giving it?

Considering the root(?) commenter said that a low carb diet did in fact work for them even though they had to go research it on their own, it sounds like it was effective.

A lot of diets work at least in the short/medium term, for those that have selection bias and "completed" them.

That's very much _not_ the same thing as a doctor recommending or prescribing them having any effect.

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

#175

Post by lm28469 »

Lammy wrote: post #76
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 bu…

> so maybe future-humanity gets a coincidental-but-desired outcome after all?

If you fuck up the gene pool to get to that result I don't think you can call it "desired".

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

#176

Post by bigtex88 »

hypertele-Xii wrote: post #111
alwillis wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From a big picture, socio-economic point of view, yes, the ruling class (Fortune 500 CEOs and elected officials they donate to and lobby) are essentially forcing the poor, the unaware, the average Joe to eat a diet full of high-fructose corn syrup and other carbohydrates, which happens to be produced by giant agricultural companies. Corn is a subsidized crop by the US Department of Agriculture—we pay farmers to grow…

> I've lived in food deserts and I can tell you getting healthy food can be quite an arduous task, especially if you rely on public transportation. That's what food desert means. As in, no food. Therefore food must be imported. Therefore it's expensive. Sugar just happens to be a well-preserving food. The solution is quite simple: Don't live in a food desert.

Yeah wow that is quite possibly the most tone-deaf thing I've ever read on here. Plenty of people don't have the option to simply "not live in a food desert".

I hate calling out privilege but this just smacks of privilege.

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

#177

Post by dghughes »

eric4smith wrote: post #154

It’s so interesting that type 2 diabetes is curable with diet. Type 1 is incurable. My point is that the psychology of eating is so strong that people would rather take a drug that pass on birth defects to the future than change eating habits. And I’m a person coming from struggling with just those habits. I think if someone could come up with a treatment to adjust mindsets - it would change healthcare forever and en…

Curable in all cases or just early after a type II diagnosis? I think once you lose it that's it.

The pancreas insulin output is low that's type II diabetes. From my understanding the pancreas, an organ, is damaged and can't regenerate like all organs except the liver (sort of). Like a rotten tooth can't regrow an organ once damaged there's no repair. Pancreatitis is what I'd see as a reversible situation since it's inflammation of the pancreas but not damaged yet.

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

#178

Post by lm28469 »

Zircom wrote: post #4
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…

Unfortunately the vast vast majority of people won't commit to a big lifestyle change like that in the first place, and a big majority of the people that due end up not following through. So most doctors won't bother suggesting it as a legitimate option because for most people it kind of isn't.

> So most doctors won't bother suggesting it

If you put it as:

- exercise to live longer and healthier, to have a better life in literally every aspect

vs

- take X and Y pills until you die, it'll cost you up to xxx thousand dollars over your lifespan, will cause serious side effects and will not solve the root cause

I bet people would be at least consider the first option.

The problem is that the pharma industry works the same way as the food industry, their business model is to sell you things you need on a regular schedule and the for as long as possible.

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

#179

Post by dkarl »

TylerE wrote: post #59
dkarl wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> made no mention of what actually resolved my diabetes, a low carb diet. I hope that becomes the first resort Doctors know that if they compared "taking Metformin" to "eating a low-carb diet," the low-carb diet would win hands down. But that's not the comparison that's relevant for them, because it's not a choice they get to make. They have to choose between "advising someone to take Metformin" and "advising someone…

It isn't a choice. It's quite practical to do both.

You're right in a limited way, but the way it was put to me, doctors don't see it as possible to effectively pitch both approaches in the same session with a patient. You probably won't see them a second time, so you have to lead with the pills and concentrate on the pills. It's your one shot to get them on a medication that will extend and improve their life if there is one for their condition, like metformin or a statin, so even though you mention dietary changes, you're not making a realistic effort at convincing them to try it, because that would involve a lot more time and discussion and coaching about what a healthy diet is. You focus on the medication because getting them to take medication daily is a realistic goal that will succeed with a decent percentage of patients.

Also, if you stress the dietary approach too much, a lot of patients will eventually ask, "If I make the dietary changes, is it possible I can avoid taking medication?" and you have to say "yes" and now the odds are you'll never see them again and they won't get either. So you mention the dietary changes, just so they know it's effective if they're inclined to go that route, but you focus on getting them to take medication.

It's definitely a sad compromise aimed at the average patient, and doctors hate it.

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

#180

Post by eMSF »

ianai wrote: post #142
golem14 wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even .24% isn't that rare. From NIH.gov: "In the United States, a rare disease is defined as a condition that affects fewer than 200,000 people in the US."

That works out to 6.0341E-06%

A condition which would affect 6e-6%, or 0.000006% of the US population (330M) would affect 20 persons. 200000/330M = 0.0006 = 0.06%.
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