We should add that generally I don’t think acarbose farts don’t smell much.
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Actually I’ve noticed my farts usually don’t have any odor. 90% of the time.
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Nick1
#562
When you break down carbohydrates, you pretty much release CO2 and H20 besides energy.
Unlike prtoeins, there is no sulfur ! CO2 is odorless…hahaaaa
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Oh wow! I didn’t know this. The protein powder farts are toxic for sure 
out for curiosity, does poop follow the same rule?
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Unfortunately mine were deadly. I think part of it was the sheer volume, I honestly didn’t know it was possible to fill an entire home with gas like I was doing. My wife did not appreciate it to say the least.
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Acarbose gas, for me, was deadly. I think my wife would divorce me before putting up with it, and I can’t say I blame her!
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Very impressive. My diet is not great, partly owing to my work, which makes it difficult, but I do take acarbose with carb containing meals and my job does allow me to be on my feet, which I like a lot. These days I put a lot of effort into walking or being physically active after meals, hopefully my glucose levels are even in the ballpark of yours.
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Beth
#567
Thank you!! I’m a homebody, so it’s definitely easier for me to eat healthy than when busier people have to eat out or on the run.
I imagine your acarbose and activity is helping quite a bit, and being on your feet at work is so wonderful for your health!!
This was two years ago and shows what my spikes would look like with a healthy diet, while even being on metformin! This was before I discovered acarbose and dapagliflozin. (Just imagine what it was pre metformin and pre eating WFPB!!!). Once again, bless all of you for changing my health!
I cringe when I think about the damage that was being caused for 58 years!
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After wearing a CGM, I’m actually finding my glucose levels are quite low, typically in the high 4s to low 5s. My question is then why do all my blood tests report a HBA1C in the 5.4-5.9 range??? I’m not sure what to believe!
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How sure are you that your CGM gives accurate readings? I’m not saying one way or another, but my experience of the Abbot OTC CGM has been utterly unacceptable. I cross-checked the validity of those readings with a simultaneous three way tests, and while fingerprick glucose monitor and the vein blood test results had good agreement, the CGM was ludicrously off scale so absurdly, that my confidence in any of these CGM readings is exactly zero.
Now, maybe your CGM works better for you, I wouldn’t doubt it. But it might be interesting for you to try to check it against the gold standard of vein serum and finger glucose monitor, so you might have an idea about possible margin of error.
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Same experience here → make sense to validate with fingerpricks…
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Should healthy people take both acarbose and an SGLT2 inhibitor or is that too much glucose inhibition? Any preference for one over the other?
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I take both, and without the acarbose, I still get glucose spikes. So, I’d say that both are important.
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There are no “shoulds” in this area. We are all looking at the data on both compounds and making personal decisions based on our own risk reward profiles, and reading of the data.
Different people’s bodies respond differently to acarbose; partly based on diet type. Gas is a common issue, that can go away with time and avoidance of a diet based on wheat-oriented carbs.
I would say the data is currently better on SGLT2 inhibitors as they are newer drugs and a lot more research is ongoing on these drugs, and looks very promising. Acarbose is an old drug that is no longer researched much, or even sold much in the western world.
I alternate between acarbose and empagliflozin… both work well for me in terms of lowering blood glucose spikes. I would recommend tracking blood sugar levels if you try either of these, and see how your body responds to both of them.
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Thank you both. I ask in part because there seems to be a lot of confusion in the other thread about whether SGLT2 inhibitors actually prevent glucose spikes after eating. Guess the only way to know for yourself is to test. FWIW here’s what consensus says:
Yes, empagliflozin helps prevent glucose spikes after eating by lowering postprandial (after-meal) glucose levels and reducing overall glucose variability.
Evidence:
- Reduced Postprandial Glucose and Glucose Variability: A 4-week randomized, placebo-controlled trial in Japanese patients with type 2 diabetes found that empagliflozin significantly lowered postprandial glucose levels and reduced 24-hour glucose variability (Nishimura et al., 2015).
- Improved Postprandial Glucose in Type 1 Diabetes: In a study with patients with type 1 diabetes using continuous glucose monitoring, empagliflozin reduced glucose exposure, postprandial glucose excursions, and variability, and increased time spent in the target glucose range (Famulla et al., 2017).
- Positive Effects in Pancreatectomized Patients: Even in patients without a pancreas, empagliflozin improved postprandial glucose control after a mixed meal test, suggesting its effects are independent of insulin secretion (Baekdal et al., 2023).
- General Glucose Lowering Effects: Reviews and trials also highlight that empagliflozin consistently reduces both fasting and postprandial glucose levels as part of its glucose-lowering mechanism, through urinary glucose excretion (Scheen, 2015).
Conclusion:
Empagliflozin effectively prevents glucose spikes after meals by lowering postprandial glucose and reducing overall glucose variability, making it a useful tool in managing blood sugar levels.
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Beth
#575
I’ve used Metformin alone, I then added acarbose, and then I later dropped metformin and added dapagliflozin. According to my cgm, dapagliflozin definitely helps control my glucose spikes.
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RapAdmin
split this topic
#576
9 posts were merged into an existing topic: Canagliflozin - Another Top Longevity Drug
This is in diabetic people (or even more extreme, patients without a pancreas). I.e. people with advanced, pathogenic insulin resistance.
Our demographic of otherwise healthy people with “normal” glucose and insulin handling is quite different.
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I’ve never worn a CGM, but I have a similar issue. My fasting glucose and insulin levels are always near the bottom of the range. I forget what my insulin is, but my fasting glucose always comes back no higher than mid 70s, but my hba1c is about 5.3. My diet isn’t that bad.
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I dont mind the farting, but there are times when it actually breaks up your sleep at night with the tank of gas… its something when your half asleep in a dozed state and you waking up constantly farting… it happens on occasion.
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