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Diabetic drugs
Diabetic drugs
The drugs used to combat diabetes fall into several main categories:
The first,
alpha glucosidase inhibitors
such as
Acarbose
, stop the absorption of glucose from the gut. (But if you are going to stop
the absorption of a food, why waste money on buying it in the first place?)
Second (they're usually used first) are the
biguanides
such as
Metformin
. These force muscle cells to absorb more glucose. (Wouldn't it be better not
to get too much glucose in the blood in the first place?)
Next we have
thiazolidinediones
such as
Pioglitazone
or
Rosiglitazone
. These drugs enhance uptake of glucose into the liver, muscles or fat cells
(so you put on weight!).
Then there are
sulphonylureas
such as
Glimiparide
which make the pancreas produce more insulin. (Wouldn't it be better not to
raise glucose levels in the first place?)
Then we have
Prandial Glucose Regulators
such as
Nateglinide
which stimulate the release of ever more insulin to combat the rising levels
of glucose in the blood. (Again, wouldn't it be better not to get too much
glucose in the blood in the first place?)
Lastly there are two drugs, Actos and Avandia which you would have to be really stupid to take. These drugs activate PPAR-gamma receptors, which are nuclear receptors designed to multiply fat cells. So, these drugs lower your blood sugar by increasing the number of fat cells faster to accommodate more fat! They don't fix the underlying problem: over-consumption of carbohydrates, they merely allow your body to reduce its blood glucose by storing more of it as fat. And once those fat cells become resistant to insulin you're back to where you started — only a lot fatter! So your drug doses are increased (again), and you end up in a never-ending vicious cycle of increasing weight and deteriorating health. It doesn't help that Avandia significantly increases your risk of a heart attack.
Eventually, as these drugs invariably fail, diabetics' pancreases are finally
worn out by this constant excessive production of insulin and give up. At this
stage, Type-2 diabetics are generally forced to inject insulin.
This is an extremely unhealthy step. And it gets worse:
Polypharmacy May Be Unavoidable
Looking at the problem of increasing drug use, Dr PH Winocour noted that:
"Given the cardiovascular risk profile of type 2 diabetes, up to 10% of
patients could require two or three hypoglycaemic agents (ultimately including
insulin), at least three antihypertensive agents, two hypolipidaemic agents,
and aspirin. A high proportion will also require treatment for coexistent
cardiovascular disease and coincidental unrelated chronic disease. It is
difficult to see how we can realistically expect patients to comply for long
with such a draconian regimen requiring so many separate drugs."
Reference
Winocour PH. Effective diabetes care: a need for realistic targets.
BMJ
2002; 324: 1577-1580
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