Are the Longevity Benefits of Acarbose Rooted in Its Role on the Gut Microbiota?
gethealthspan.com
gethealthspan.com
Having said that Acarbose was still only shown to extend life in mice. The moment something is about gut microbiome I start losing confidence in the ability of mouse models in predicting human behavior.
When I originally heard about Acarbose in this episode I looked up Reddit as I usually do and the scant mentions all recalled smelly flatulence as a gross side effect. Take that for what you want! Not to mention it worked only in male mice and we have no idea how! This is not confidence inducing especially if you’re committing to becoming horrendously smelly!
There are multiple studies. The larger ones seem to find it working in female mice, too [1].
Rapacmycin, acarbose, glycine, canagliflozin and 17-a-estradiol [1]. Acarbose’s side effects include “flatulence (78% of patients) and diarrhea (14% of patients)” [2]. (It also appears to be hard on the liver.)
[1] https://www.nia.nih.gov/research/dab/interventions-testing-p...
It’s fairly safe to discount any study that indicates significant health effects from a nonessential amino acid, especially in animal models.
One, that’s too much confidence for a topic we do not understand well. Two, the study found—with startlingly high confidence and a meaningful, if small, effect size—glycine “can mitigate methionine toxicity,” the latter being an essential amino acid [1].
i.e. semaglutide for weight loss, canagliflozin for longevity, etc.
Diabetes drugs improve or replace the role of insulin, through differing mechanisms, so it makes sense that they would have some of the same benefits.
As far as I know the mice get a high sugar/starch diet, but afaik nobody ever stopped to see if they live longer on a high fat/high protein diet or not. not sure about this though.
“Are the Longevity Benefits of Acarbose Rooted in Its Effect on the Gut Microbiota?”
It presents something as fact (Acarbose has longevity benefits) in the form of a question. This sort of structure implies that it’s already been widely accepted as fact that this is true without overtly saying it and it’s commonly used in marketing to slip things by the brain’s natural BS filter. You can also commonly see this in agenda-driven media headlines.
The truth is that Acarbose hasn’t been shown to have longevity benefits in anything but mice, and even that research is questionable at best.
If you need further proof that this is marketing, notice the “products” button on the upper right, where the website that published this article happens to sell…you guessed it…Acarbose. The guy who wrote the article, Daniel Tawfik, is the founder of Zenpatient, the online pharmacy used to sell this and other medications.
We’re being marketed to. I’m flagging this post. It’s spam.