Introduction: Prevalence of sarcopenia has increased in patients with type 2 diabetes. The influence of glucose-lowering drugs on muscles in these patients remains unclear. We aimed to investigate the association between muscle mass/function and glucose-lowering drugs.
Conclusion: Acarbose treatment was associated with decreased muscle mass and strength. Assessment and exercise of muscles in patients with long-term acarbose treatment should be considered.
I had no effect on muscle mass, have been on acarbose for 5 months now and if anything I have noticed increase in lean weight. I have added 1.5 kg of muscles in this period and loat same amount of BF. But I have been training, looking at my diet and I believe rapamycin had a great deal to do with fat loss.
Yep. I am going on 8-months now of Acarbose 50 mg with each meal… no muscle or weight change - but I am pretty shredded after 3-years of Rapamycin dosing almost weekly. Memory and remembering ability is off the charts.
This is actually an endorsement of the carbohydrate-preventative absorption properties of acarbose.
I wouldn’t stop taking acarbose unless I was an old diabetic person on a high-carb diet because acarbose would produce a nutrition loss.
Metformin shows minimal negative effects even in this group.
You have to take into consideration who was in the study:
Asians; where rice forms a major component of their diet.
“The patients using acarbose were older, and had longer diabetes duration”
“This effect of acarbose on absorption of carbohydrates leads to reduction of energy, especially in Asia where rice forms a major component of the diet and the dietary contribution of carbohydrate is high”
Yes, so you take an Asian population and take away their main source of nutrients and do not expect a loss of muscle mass?
"What was learned from the study?
Acarbose therapy, rather than insulin, metformin, sulfonylureas, and dipeptidyl peptidase-4 inhibitors, was associated with both decreased muscle mass and function."
“Moreover, some glucose-lowering drugs, such as metformin and thiazolidinediones (TZDs), have effects on improvement of insulin resistance”
Oh, I am definitely still on Acarbose…I started in November 2022 after the positive clinical trials (with mice) getting a 13% lifespan increase in conjunction with rapamycin 22% life increase. I am hoing to guess maybe I get a total of 30% plus! Nice!
I have had no weight loss… but tbh not much left to lose… lol. Muscle tone, size, strength maintained. All great.
My avatar pic with this message is from a week or so ago. People my age and younger can’t believe I am 65 years… and 4 months.
I found a a pre- rapamycin portrait of me in my desktop photos… exactly 3 years ago. A week before I started on rapamycin, I was shocked. Looks like it could be my father… strange.
Hahaha… well kind of like my biological tests graphs there is a potential high benefit range, medium and low range. So, I am defaulting to the lower guesstimate range of 30%… hence the plus. Lol.
Still impressive… and then add Taurine for another 10 to 11 percent extension.
I am doing all three so who knows… most people would settle for an extra 5 years of life and health.
If my GlycanAge and TruMe Methylation tests are accurate, I have stolen back about 15 years.
I definitely feel the impressive improvement and feel every bit of it too!
Bodybuilders will tell you that insulin is a growth hormone. High insulin levels are anabolic, but high insulin will kill you. Better to stay alive and find other means of growing muscle.
“…observations suggest that supplementation would be useless in increasing circulating taurine levels in those already within typical physiological ranges. (Data in humans with unusually low taurine levels, as is often seen with obesity, kidney disease, or strict vegan diets, suggest that supplementation does indeed raise serum levels in these individuals.) Any excess either wouldn’t be absorbed or would be excreted. And if taurine levels decline with age due to an increase in excretion, the threshold that defines “excess” taurine is effectively reduced. For instance, a taurine concentration of 50 µmol/L in a 20-year-old could be raised with supplements, but the same level in a 60-year-old might represent an upper limit.”
I can be chimp-ish… and if I am low… not where you want to be… and it is soooo cheap…so why not…maybe. Lol
As Rayk said: Acarbose can decrease muscle mass by blunting insulin
Insulin is used by many bodybuilders to build muscles
BTW, some pro bodybuilders even talk about what training and proteins turn on mTor the most - so it seems like people need to accept that some anti aging drugs may lower muscle mass by 10%