From Twitter today:
Sounds best to be a bit more conservative in its use.
It’d be nice if there were a way to regularly assess kidney functions that SGLT2 inhibitors might harm.
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The Fournier gangrene warning is in the package insert, but is extremely rare. Have to remember that the typical patient taking these meds is an obese diabetic with multiple comorbidities, so it seems reasonable to expect this phenomenon to be essentially non-existent in fairly healthy individuals taking it for life extension (knock on wood!).
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Agreed - probably a very low risk issue for healthy people not suffering from diabetes, obesity, heart disease, etc.
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When would one want to consider taking SGLT-2 outside of prescription use, so for example would someone with a high fasting blood glucose but is not prediabetic benefit from taking them or is there an age to start(like rapamycin)?
There is no data that I’m aware of for SGLT2 inhibitor use in healthy populations (of humans). The key study we all refer to is the ITP canagliflozin study on mice that increased lifespan significantly - but we still lack human data… compared to rapamycin we have much less data on cangliflozin / SGLT2 inhibitors.
how has it been in your experience? I mean do you think it would be beneficial to take a young age or if you have higher fasting glucose levels?
From my experience, yes. They work extremely well at blood glucose control and I suspect its helpful for anyone, but I don’t have data to back it up. Low dose (e.g 100mg canagliflozin, or 10mg empagliflozin) will, I suspect, prove to be helpful to all adult males. Personal risk/reward tradeoffs may exist that we haven’t found though.
I will have to look into it more, but do people get their SGLT2 without a prescription same way as rapamycin (i.e. india)
Yes - the key benefit is that its much cheaper from India - $60/month vs. $600/month. Since we are healthy, we can’t get any insurance coverage of this medication.
Is this something that someone would take daily or weekly? I saw a post a couple months about someone saying that you do not need to take it daily.
You take it on the days you think you will be eating foods that will spike your blood glucose. On fasting or keto days you can skip it.
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Have you noticed any side effects or anything noticeable taking them? I just ordered 10mg empagliflozin tablets and was curious what I should look out for(if anything)
You will pee more… that is all.
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Have you tried taking it at night yet?
Also I got my empagliflozin from welcome healthcare and it came in today. It came about a week early.
What company from India?
May I suggest you read the enclosure you got with your empagliflozin?
First, I don’t have type 2 diabetes, but I am old and my fasting glucose and A1c continue to slowly rise. My current fasting glucose level is 97mg/dL and A1/c is 5.5 % of total Hgb I have been on metformin for decades, first 500 mg daily and now 500mg twice daily. Metformin certainly has mixed reviews for someone my age. (81) So, I have been cycling on and off with other blood sugar-lowering supplements to see what effect they have on my fasting glucose. I take my blood glucose levels 2 to 3 times a day.
The blood sugar-lowering drugs and supplements I have or am taking are metformin, Jardience/Empaglifozin, berberine, and chromium supplements. I recently started trying Jardience/Empagliflozin tablets made by a German company Boehringer Ingelheim and imported to India by Boehringer Ingelheim India Private Limited.
Oddly, none of the things I have tried or am taking seem to have much of an effect on fasting glucose. Empagliflozin taken at 10 mg and 20 mg daily has had no discernible effect. Today I finally took out and read the Jardiance/Empaglifozin enclosed literature. I was surprised at the almost innumerable side effects they had listed from relatively large cohort studies ~70,000. They supply a surprising amount of information about the drug. Also, the benefit compared to placebo at various doses and with and without metformin was not very impressive.
So at this point, I am going to forego metformin and empagliflozin because for me the risk vs reward benefits aren’t there.
Bottom line: For me personally, metformin, empagliflozin, berberine, etc, has had little effect on my blood glucose levels. For younger people there may be longevity effects with the metformin.
i am 70 and not diabetic, currently taking canagliflozin 50 mg daily (cut 100 mg pill in half), and 25 mg acarbose on meal times. my fasting blood glucose drops from 108 in December 2021 to 88 in April this year. I also lost 10 pounds weight in between. IMO, the combo works better than metformin i took before.
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Good for you, though I personally found that losing weight alone lowers blood glucose.
Well, possibly in my case, you can’t fix what is not broken.
Interestingly while I was on a ketogenic diet I discovered that potassium BHB salts would dramatically drop my blood sugar in 30 minutes. People on a ketogenic diet tend to have a higher than normal fasting blood sugar level. BHB salts were recommended to help transition into ketosis. I use the potassium for two reasons, I like the blood pressure-lowering response to the potassium, and two, the potassium salt can be taken in a glass of water because it is not as nasty-tasting as the other BHB salts I have tried
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