Five months ago I weighed 246 pounds. This morning I weighed in at 218. My weight loss has been in fits and starts, going up a few pounds some days, down a few on others. I’ve obviously had more down days than up days, and today was a neutral day, with neither a gain nor a loss since yesterday. But today is a different kind of milestone. It’s the first time I’ve actually felt thinner.

A lot of my weight loss is due to a diabetes medication change. A big problem with most of the popular oral type 2 diabetes medications is that they tend to promote weight gain. A new injectable drug, Byetta, is being hailed as a miracle by many diabetics and their doctors because it promotes weight loss — and, indeed, helps so well with weight loss that some doctors are cautiously testing it as a weight-loss aid for patients who don’t have diabetes. Byetta is a pain in the stomach (not ass, because it is usually injected in the stomach area) twice a day, and has potential side effects that include nausea and pancreatitus. And when your pancreas stops working, you die. The pancreatitus thing only affects a tiny percentage of Byetta users, but other discomforts and side effects from the drug — and how to deal with them — fill a number of online forums.

Being a chronic researcher, and being married to a woman who is even more of a chronic researcher than I am, I set out to see what other diabetes medications were available besides the standard Metformin/Glucophage regimen I was already on. And I found Acarbose.

The Acarbose story is the kind of tale that makes you angry at the American profit-driven pharmaceutical distribution system. Here’s a helpful medication that can not only help control blood sugar but can also, through weight loss, help lessen diabetes or even cure it altogether if taken correctly in tandem with a moderate diet and exercise program. But Bayer A.G., the drug’s discoverer, apparently didn’t manage to patent it correctly under U.S. law, so it’s not hugely profitable and is, therefore, not actively marketed to doctors.

Byetta is firmly patented, so my doctor had plenty of information and DVDs and Byetta trial packs around to give me. For Acarbose, he had nothing. But he did say he was aware of it, and had several “winter patients” from Canada who used it successfully, so he wrote me a prescription. The local Walgreen’s didn’t have any in stock, but was able to order it for me. And so, I started taking Acarbose — and started losing weight.

Acarbose, taken at the start of meals, helps you feel full with less food in your stomach. Its main side effects are flatulence (farting) and mild diarrhea. Hey! I can live with these, especially since my blood sugar is now well within normal range and I’m losing weight steadily. I can and do skip my dose if I expect to be in a confined space (like a corporate meeting room or an airplane) during the next few hours, but I’ve also found that the side effects are less pronounced now than they were at the beginning.

So fine. I’m taking Acarbose, a comparatively low-cost medication, and my weight and dependence on other drugs have both gone down.

My next major health move will be to quit smoking. But for the moment, I’m enjoying the weight loss. One thing at a time and all that.

if you have type 2 diabetes, I strongly advise you to ask your physician about Acarbose. I can’t say that my results are typical or that this medication is right for everyone. But it’s certainly worth investigating.

This entry was posted on Thursday, January 29th, 2009 at 9:39 am and is filed under Business, Stories. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.