Lower Your Insulin Level: Medication
In the last post we discussed the impact of lifestyle on your insulin level. This post will discuss the impact of medications. Sulfonylurea drugs like tolbutamide and glyburide for diabetes increase insulin release and insulin levels in the blood. The first clinical trial in type 2 diabetes started in 1961 and was based on the idea that diabetic complications are all about the sugar. Get the sugar down and diabetic complications fall. In this first trial, twice as many patients died of cardiovascular events if they took a medication that increased insulin levels.
The landmark ACCORD trial was designed to prove that reducing the sugar level in the blood to near normal in type 2 diabetes would protect patients from diabetic complications. It did not matter how the sugar level was lowered and lots of insulin and sulfonylurea medication was used. This trial was stopped early because 257 patients died in the aggressive treatment group and 203 died in the less aggressive group. Once again, lowering the sugar by any means killed more people. There is more to managing diabetes than lowering the sugar.
Of course, insulin shots raise the insulin level. In patients with type 2 diabetes, long-acting shots coupled with three injections at meal time result in the highest insulin levels. High insulin levels promote weight gain and I have never seen anyone lose weight who was taking insulin in this way.
In the last post we discussed the science of best practice diet and exercise. It reduces insulin levels and they switches off mTOR while switching on AMPK. The medications that lower the death rate and diabetic complications do the same thing. Medications like metformin and empagliflozin switch off mTOR and switch on AMPK. They lower insulin levels. They reduce cardiovascular complications and they promote weight loss. They slow aging and delay chronic disease onset.
Taken together, these facts help us design our program for diabetes to switch off mTOR and switch on AMPK to dramatically reduce mortality, reduce heart attacks and strokes, and lose more weight. Our protocol includes carb and sugar restriction, intermittent fasting, exercise, taking metformin if you are diabetic or prediabetic, and a medication like empagliflozin if the sugar level is still high. Lowering the sugar is important. The way you lower the sugar is just as important. Instead of focusing solely on the sugar level, we should also make recommendations that lower the insulin level and promote weight reduction.