Comments on: Odorous but Delicious! http://flotsamblog.com/2005/10/07/taleggio-and-red-pepper-risotto/ Deplorable solipsism? The new face of literature? Or merely a clever procrastination device... Fri, 30 Jul 2010 01:44:52 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.0 By: Bill http://flotsamblog.com/2005/10/07/taleggio-and-red-pepper-risotto/comment-page-1/#comment-80 Bill Sat, 15 Oct 2005 01:16:44 +0000 http://flotsamblog.com/?p=44#comment-80 A, I came to your blog from a comment left on another re a 3-yr old's Rainmanish behavior (eg, spontaneously memorizing the QWERTY homerow letter order). In fact, I came here specifically to offer congratulations on your PhD in math. Good for you! What was your dissertation topic, if I may ask? But the reason for leaving a comment just here is about Metformin. It's main effect is to discourage the liver from converting intra-cellular glycogen (aka "animal starch") into blood glucose. It also has some (relatively small) effects on insulin sensitivity in many body cells (fat and muscle mostly), and a noticeable, but minor tendency to help lose a few pounds. In larger doses there are some GI effects (cramps and the runs mostly). Titration up to clinically effective doses sometimes gets around the side effects. The (more expensive) controlled release version sometimes helps avoid the side effects as well. It also tastes terrible, so be prepared with water or something which will get it down the hatch quickly. The drug has an interesting history. It's one of three bi-guanides identified between about 1915 and WWII. One of them was associated with an elevated (small) rate of death from a sort of acidosis, and was pulled from the US by the FDA (50s sometime). All got dropped from clinical use in the US, though metformin continued in clinical use in Canada, UK, etc. In the early 90s, one of the big drug companies took the trouble of trying to get the drug back into US clinical use (financing some trials and some general pressure here and there as I understand it). Odd, since patent protection would be unavailable as I get the history; not the usual Big Pharma behavior. Anyway, it was a big (that's $$$) hit, there being no existing drug which helped keep the liver from dumping glucose into the blood at inappropriate times; cockeyed insulin leads to cockeyed liver BG homostasis. Brand extensions (I suspect patented) have followed (combinations with sulfonylureas, controlled release, ...) have followed. Useful drug for some folks, hope it will be for you. Bill PS The comment parser (for legal email addresses) does not permit xxx at yahoo dot com. Probably not the best design as many of us dislike leaving anything a spam bot is likely to pick up. I've been waiting for them to wise up to 'at' and 'dot' for a while, but so far... B A,

I came to your blog from a comment left on another re a 3-yr old’s Rainmanish behavior (eg, spontaneously memorizing the QWERTY homerow letter order). In fact, I came here specifically to offer congratulations on your PhD in math. Good for you! What was your dissertation topic, if I may ask?

But the reason for leaving a comment just here is about Metformin. It’s main effect is to discourage the liver from converting intra-cellular glycogen (aka “animal starch”) into blood glucose. It also has some (relatively small) effects on insulin sensitivity in many body cells (fat and muscle mostly), and a noticeable, but minor tendency to help lose a few pounds. In larger doses there are some GI effects (cramps and the runs mostly). Titration up to clinically effective doses sometimes gets around the side effects. The (more expensive) controlled release version sometimes helps avoid the side effects as well.

It also tastes terrible, so be prepared with water or something which will get it down the hatch quickly.

The drug has an interesting history. It’s one of three bi-guanides identified between about 1915 and WWII. One of them was associated with an elevated (small) rate of death from a sort of acidosis, and was pulled from the US by the FDA (50s sometime). All got dropped from clinical use in the US, though metformin continued in clinical use in Canada, UK, etc. In the early 90s, one of the big drug companies took the trouble of trying to get the drug back into US clinical use (financing some trials and some general pressure here and there as I understand it). Odd, since patent protection would be unavailable as I get the history; not the usual Big Pharma behavior. Anyway, it was a big (that’s $$$) hit, there being no existing drug which helped keep the liver from dumping glucose into the blood at inappropriate times; cockeyed insulin leads to cockeyed liver BG homostasis. Brand extensions (I suspect patented) have followed (combinations with sulfonylureas, controlled release, …) have followed.

Useful drug for some folks, hope it will be for you.

Bill

PS The comment parser (for legal email addresses) does not permit xxx at yahoo dot com. Probably not the best design as many of us dislike leaving anything a spam bot is likely to pick up. I’ve been waiting for them to wise up to ‘at’ and ‘dot’ for a while, but so far…

B

]]> By: Cass http://flotsamblog.com/2005/10/07/taleggio-and-red-pepper-risotto/comment-page-1/#comment-69 Cass Fri, 07 Oct 2005 21:57:05 +0000 http://flotsamblog.com/?p=44#comment-69 Sounds yummy. But I'll have you know that back in the days before my acupuncturist got her needles into me (ha ha) I used to eat a fair amount of rich foods, so long as they were low carb. Not sure it was the best possible thing, but at the time basics like cheese and milk really got me through. So yeah, you may want to cut back on the carbs, but you can still enjoy food! (More important is to slowly build up the dosage of the Met - start with just 500 mg/day for a week, then up to 1000, and so on to the full dose.) Now I'm going to go drool over the creamy recipe (I've been off dairy since January - it may be more painful than the needles!) Sounds yummy. But I’ll have you know that back in the days before my acupuncturist got her needles into me (ha ha) I used to eat a fair amount of rich foods, so long as they were low carb. Not sure it was the best possible thing, but at the time basics like cheese and milk really got me through. So yeah, you may want to cut back on the carbs, but you can still enjoy food! (More important is to slowly build up the dosage of the Met – start with just 500 mg/day for a week, then up to 1000, and so on to the full dose.) Now I’m going to go drool over the creamy recipe (I’ve been off dairy since January – it may be more painful than the needles!)

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