Some editions of Adiposity 101 discuss the association between
high concentrations of insulin in the fetus' amniotic fluid
and subsequent obesity.

This information first became available in news reports that
concentrated on insulin in the amniotic fluid.  It was reported
that some researchers thought the obesity was *caused* by the
high concentration of insulin in the amniotic fluid.  This
implied the mother's insulin was leaking into the amniotic fluid.

A subsequent examination of the papers indicates the authors do
not believe mother's insulin leaks into the amniotic fluid, or
any other part of the fetus.  Apparently, there is no special
significance to the level of insulin in the amniotic fluid
beyond the (very important!) fact that it presents the only
practical way to estimate plasma insulin levels in the fetus.

What's the bottom line of all this?  That many cases of obesity
and eventual diabetes have their beginnings before birth as
hyperinsulinaemia and insulin resistance reveal the body's
inability to adequately control plasma glucose.

--
Chuck Forsberg WA7KGX          ...!tektronix!reed!omen!caf
Author of YMODEM, ZMODEM, Professional-YAM, ZCOMM, and DSZ
  Omen Technology Inc    "The High Reliability Software"
17505-V NW Sauvie IS RD   Portland OR 97231   503-621-3406

Could well be, Chuck.  Perhaps you will need to modify
the hypothesis that it is caused by the diet industry.
I suspect there is a genetic factor, possibly related
to the ability of the obese to survive famine and
possibly for obese women to survive pregnancy, especially
in climates with long winters, like northern and eastern
Europe.  Now that cooking.net">food is abundant, those of us who
inherited such genes are at a disadvantage, rather than
an advantage.
--
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Gordon Banks  N3JXP      | "Skepticism is the chastity of the intellect, and

----------------------------------------------------------------------------

Pima Indians and Australian Aborigines have been identified in
papers I've read as having a high incidence of this syndrome
compared to Caucasians.

It seems reasonable to suspect a strong genetic component.
However, injecting insulin into normal rats has been shown to
make them fat.  High fetal insulin levels predict later fatness,
even when the parents' obesity is factored.  So these studies
indicate a carbohydrate-driven environmental influence, alebit
one that is difficult to distinguish from genetic influence.

The genetic ability to deal with today's high dietary
carbohydrate levels is quite useful.

Maybe the FDA will finally get off its duff and approve {*filter*} that
improve insulin sensitivity (gliclazide, metformin, etc.) as treatments
for insulin insensitivity instead of the old {*filter*} that boost insulin
secretion instead of treating insulin insensitivity.

--
Chuck Forsberg WA7KGX          ...!tektronix!reed!omen!caf
Author of YMODEM, ZMODEM, Professional-YAM, ZCOMM, and DSZ
  Omen Technology Inc    "The High Reliability Software"
17505-V NW Sauvie IS RD   Portland OR 97231   503-621-3406

                        ......................

The FDA was not in favor of such {*filter*} either, and only the legal
requirement that the studies on which their banning is based be published
kept them from banning the {*filter*}{*filter*} stated above.  The study that they
wanted to use was panned very badly on what was known about it.
--
Herman Rubin, Dept. of Statistics, Purdue Univ., West Lafayette IN47907-1399
Phone: (317)494-6054

{purdue,pur-ee}!snap.stat!hrubin(UUCP)

So why is the FDA so hostile to {*filter*} that improve insulin
sensitivity (gliclazide, metformin, etc.)???  The second
generation {*filter*} have been in use world wide for 20 years.
Unlike the {*filter*} currently available in the U.S., Diamicron
restores a physiological insulin response, avoids
hyperinsulnism, prevents weight gain, allows diet-induced weight
reduction, reduces hyperadhesiveness, hyperaggregation, and
diabetic retinopathy.  By avoiding hyperinsulinemia, Diamicron
eliminates a major atheroscl{*filter*} risk.

Diamicron is used in over 100 countries worldwide.  Metformin has
been used in Canada for 20 years without a single reported case of
metformin-induced lactic acidosis.

How many of my parents' friends who died of complications of
diabetes would have been alive today if they had moved to Canada
and its "inferior" medical system???

--
Chuck Forsberg WA7KGX          ...!tektronix!reed!omen!caf
Author of YMODEM, ZMODEM, Professional-YAM, ZCOMM, and DSZ
  Omen Technology Inc    "The High Reliability Software"
17505-V NW Sauvie IS RD   Portland OR 97231   503-621-3406

Actually, you can obtain phenformin (the 1st generation biguanide
which was withdrawn from the market in 1978) on an investigational
NDA from the FDA.  Have your doctor contact Ciba-Geigy for the
details of the protocol.  It wasn't a miracle drug while it still
was being sold; there's no reason to expect it's any more wonderful now.

I don't know what's so special about gliclazide; it's just yet
another sulfonylurea.  Yawn.

Probably none of them.

One of your problems, Chuck, is that you're much too credulous
when it comes to reading claims for {*filter*} which aren't easily
available to you.  A little skepticism when reading adverti{*filter*}ts
_and_ scientific papers would go a long way.  Like I said before,
you live in Portland--take a day trip to Vancouver BC and talk to
a diabetes specialist there who can tell you about his clinical
experience with metformin.  I'm sure s/he'll be much less impressed
than you are.  But if you really want to try it, you can probably
get an Rx in Canada.  And from there I'm sure your enthusiasm will
inevitably wane, as you find that you aren't losing weight miraculously.

Another issue is that you ascribe powers to {*filter*} whose effects
on weight are orders of magnitude weaker than actions you yourself
can take.  Being prescribed a sulfonylurea to control your insulin
levels is not by itself going to keep anybody fat, even if you're
suffering from hyperinsulinemia and insulin resistance.

--
Steve Dyer

 [a lot of stuff deleted]

Wow, a miracle drug.

Is there a downside to this Eighth Wonder?

========================================

Howard Doyle

have you hugged your organ donor card today?

The study I mentioned was only for diabinese, and claimed to have a
somewhat higher proportion of cardiac deaths.  The FDA argued, according
to the statements which I read many years ago in _Science_, that these
{*filter*} were no more effective than diet and exercise, with resorting to
insulin if necessary.  

                                                 The second

My sister died of this, and until her kidneys failed she was
considered to be in good control by the {*filter*}medication.  I
seem to have avoided major complications so far, but who knows?

It is not the medical system so much as the absence of a paranoid
FDA.  This paranoia is pushed by those who believe that the FDA
would be involved in causing death ar injury from an adverse
reaction, but that not approving treatments quickly enough does
not reflect on the FDA, but upon the drug companies for not
coming up with "safe, effective" chemicals.

Remember the fuss about Alar-treated apples recently?  At least
one quite well-respected scientist in the area of chemical and
bacteriological problems has claimed that Alar prevented more
cancer by reducing bruising than it caused.  Bruising of fruit
and vegetables produces toxins and carcinogens.

--
Herman Rubin, Dept. of Statistics, Purdue Univ., West Lafayette IN47907-1399
Phone: (317)494-6054

{purdue,pur-ee}!snap.stat!hrubin(UUCP)

But if the problem begins in-utero, it would seem that what we
really need is research to identify mothers-at-risk of having
obesity-prone children and find some way of treating them
during the pregnancy to prevent it.  I suspect that there will
still be cases where the obesity is genetic and not an influence
on the embryo.  In my own family, the obesity came from my father's
side, where all my massively obese relatives are.  It is hard to
see where an in-utero influence from my mother had much to do with
it.  From the pedigree charts, it looks to me like an autosomal
{*filter*} gene, with about 50% of the children getting it and 50%
having little or no tendancy to get obese.

--
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Gordon Banks  N3JXP      | "Skepticism is the chastity of the intellect, and

----------------------------------------------------------------------------

So one "well-respected scientist" says this? Who is he?
Wouldn't be UC Berkeley's Bruce Ames, by any chance? His name always crops
up in these discussions. He is nothing more than a paid apologist for the
agrichemical industry.
--
******************************************************************************
Robert Greenstein           What the fool cannot learn he laughs at, thinking

                            of latent idiocy - M. Corelli

Phenformin has a risk of .64/1000 patients per year of of lactic
acidosis.  I don't know much about lactic acidosis but it sounds
dreadful and is life threating.  It may have something to do
with the fact that adipose cells convert glucose into lactate.
Metformin reduces this risk to 0.05 cases/1000 patients/year,
somewhat better odds.

Most sulfonylureas do not decrease insulin resistance, they just
increase the production of insulin.  Hyperinsulnism causes
weight gain.  The cardiac problems associated with diabetes
appear to be caused by hyperinsulinemia and not hyperglycaemia,
so sulfonylureas may make this problem worse, not better.

Metformin does not increase insulin production.  In fact it does
not reduce glucose in healthy subjects, and is not known to
cause hypoglycaemia.

Gliclazide is a sulfonylurea, but one that seems to behave more
like metformin.  If you have information that refutes this,
let's see something more than a yawn.  Don't forget, if you have
a weight problem, particularly if you've ever "flunked" a GTT,
chances are this will in time become a concern.

They may have died of the atheroscl{*filter*} complications of diabetes because
their insulin levels were not controlled.

I mentioned the advert because it concisely states the case for
{*filter*} that control insulin resistance instead of {*filter*} that
simply boot insulin secretion.  I've read quite a few papers on
the subject recently, and many more abstracts, and none of them
have contradicted the distinctions between the stuff Kaiser has
me on and metformin.

Vanvouver BC is too far away for a day trip thanks to US Customs
and the Washington State Highway Patrol.  But it's a thought.

Metformin is prescribed for quite a few cases.

None of these {*filter*} seems in any way miraculous.  But it shouldn't
be too much to ask for a drug that is used world-wide (phenformin
isn't anymore) that reduces excessive insulin levels.

Weight gain seems to be the most common side-effect of diabetes
{*filter*} that boost insulin.  I didn't ask for a magic thin pill,
just something that doesn't work against me.

--
Chuck Forsberg WA7KGX          ...!tektronix!reed!omen!caf
Author of YMODEM, ZMODEM, Professional-YAM, ZCOMM, and DSZ
  Omen Technology Inc    "The High Reliability Software"
17505-V NW Sauvie IS RD   Portland OR 97231   503-621-3406