Semaglutide and T1D - wild claims?

[Eddy Edson]

https://twitter.com/x/status/1699528145593151654

It's just a little observational study of 10 newly-diagnosed T1D's at a medical centre, with no control, so elephant-sized piles of salt required, but at 12 months:

- 7/10 no longer required insulin
- 3/10 no longer required insulin with meals
- Avg HbA1c went from 11.7% -> 5.7%
- Maybe consistent with an extension to honeymoon period?

 

[everydayupsanddowns]

Honeymoon period was my first thought too.

Onset tends to be slower in adults (the ten people were 21-39), and I understand there is more likely to be a level of ongoing homegrown beta-cell insulin support for longer, and quite possibly permanently (as recorded in the Joslin medallist studies).

We have some members here who are diagnosed later in life with autoimmune diabetes, and then started on basal only.

I believe are questions from some specialists about the wisdom of flogging your last remaining beta cells to work extra hard and whether that may hasten their demise? Not sure what the balance of evidence is on this is, but it gets mentioned here from time to time, especially when newly Dx LADA folks are started on oral meds.

 

[Robin]

I wonder if anyone asked the patients how they were feeling?
I was misdiagnosed as Type 2, so managed my diabetes for the first six months on Metformin, Gliclazide and a very low carb diet (I wasn’t told to, I just did it because it seemed to keep me from soaring into the 20s). I reduced my Hba1c from 16.1% to 9%. But I wasn’t functioning properly, I had dehydration and cramp the whole time, and I can remember going for a riding lesson when the weather was very hot and asking to be swapped onto an easier horse, because I just didn’t have enough energy to cope with the more difficult one I'd been assigned.
I only started feeling a bit more like my old self when I got onto some basal insulin, but wasn’t fully functioning til I got bolus thrown in.