#141

lol the pill is so small that there is literally no way to mix it evenly with food unless you are consuming liquid food.

1 Like
#142

This seems a rather good incentive to try and spread out acarbose absorbtion. I wonder how well crushed tablets dissolve. Perhaps consuming a meal with a drink containing dissolved tablets will work.

acarbose powder

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#143

They compare an evenly distributed dose to swallowing a tablet at the beginning of the meal. Swallowing a tablet will miss modifying the initial response to food since the tablet needs to dissolve. So the question for me is how much of the difference shown is just that initial delay in onset of acarbose effects. Put another way, how much additional benefit does an evenly divided dose give to people who already chew their tablet at the start of the meal? I tend to doubt it it’s meaningful.

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#144

Many of us just chew the acarbose tablets when we take them with the first bite of the food. Its easy and quick.

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#145

I have stopped acarbose use, a quartered 100mg pill (~25mg) would make me hypoglycemic.

1 Like
#146

This is addressed in the document.

As a tablet taken with the first mouthful of food, Acarbose is unlikely to be uniformly distributed through the food in the intestine even if it was chewed thoroughly. As a result of this non-uniform distribution it is possible that the early part of a meal may be malabsorbed, due to high local concentrations of the inhibitor, while the latter part of the meal may be absorbed almost normally due to low or absent amounts of the inhibitor. Under such circumstances, at the extreme it is possible to envisage symptoms of malabsorption occurring in the face of very little metabolic benefit.

arcabose powder.pdf (801.4 KB)

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#147

Good find! So, I wonder what the best strategy is… take it 20 minutes before the meal?

Maybe we should be buying acarbose powder in bulk and sprinkling it on the food?

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#148

So, instead of taking acarbose I could just stop taking beano to get the same effect?

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#149

This paper says…"The a-glucosidase inhibitor Acarbose has been shown to competitively inhibit the intestinal digestion of starch as well as sucrose. Addition of Acarbose to a starch or sucrose load reduces the postprandial glucose and insulin responses in a dose- dependent manner "

Sucrose? What would it do…keep the sucrose from breaking down into glucose and fructose?

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#150

There’s another document out there that says taking it 30 minutes before a meal is much less effective than with the first bite, or 15 minutes after the start. (Supposedly the latter two are equally effective.)

I mixed one 50mg tab in with some rice (and other stuff) I just had for lunch, and then I crushed one 50mg tab and mixed in a drink I had with a follow-on Luna bar. (Don’t see much residue in the glass, so maybe it mixes well.) Will see what the cgm shows. (Though it is acting flakey.) Will continue experimenting.

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#151

I think mixing with food won’t work but dissolving it in water (if it dissolves well, and assuming it still maintains its effectiveness) seems to be the best solution. Then just drink a little with each bite. In my opinion though crushing/chewing it with first bite should be just fine. I am afraid this is just a bit too much slicing and dicing.

#152

Hi everyone
I’m currently taking 200mg of acarbose wich each meal, so a total of 600mg a day. I used to have some gas at the beginning of the treatment, but it’s gone now. No belly disconfort at all, even with oat or lentils. It will go away, you just have to wait.

My acarbose is from a french pharmacy, the lab is Biogaran, 100mg/tab, 90 tabs in a box.

Screenshot_2024-02-08-13-41-09-610_com.freestylelibre.app.fr
Screenshot_2024-02-08-13-41-09-610_com.freestylelibre.app.fr1440×3200 198 KB

I use empagliflozin (Jardiance) 25mg a day with, and 500mg of berberine with each meal. My bood glucose seems to be great. No huge spike, it never goes over 160mg/dL, and drop quickly. My average blood glucose according to my CGM is 106mg/dL. As a young and active person I’m happy with this results.

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#153

Yes, exactly. I too was surprised when I first learned this.

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#154

Yes, the authors do speculate that chewing at the start of a meal might be worse than evenly distributing it. However, they provide no citations for this. And it certainly might make sense to divide the dose for longer meals. But I haven’t yet been able to find great data one way or another on how long acarbose has a good protective effect. In Asakura et al 1999, there was still a significant difference in blood glucose at 60 minutes when the acarbose was taken just before the start of a meal. So there seems to be some effect lasting about an hour. My understanding from the literature on glycemic index has been that the initial glucose spike and insulin response are important for the overall impact of the meal, so I try to prioritize covering the start of the meal.

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#155

I’ve been taking rapa, metformin and acarbose for a couple of years. Increased the acarbose from 25 mg per meal to 100 mg over that time. Some flatulence with each dose increase but overall entirely manageable and it tempers a few weeks after each dose increase.
The CGM number’s definitely show lower glucose spikes with the acarbose.

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#156

I’ve worked up to 50mg with each of my four daily meals totaling 200mg per day. Similar experience as you. Totally manageable.

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#157

Anyone know if we have to worry about any similar negative impact of Acarbose on exercise like we do with Metformin?

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#158

They have very different mechanisms of action. I’ve not seen any reports of issues related to exercise / muscle growth with acarbose.

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#159

Unfortunately, I looked it up right after I posed the question and found this 2021 study. So maybe there is an alternate mechanism. I won’t stop taking it but it’s still a bummer.

Association of Acarbose with Decreased Muscle Mass and Function in Patients with Type 2 Diabetes: A Retrospective, Cross-Sectional Study - PMC.

Conclusion: Acarbose treatment was associated with decreased muscle mass and strength.

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#160

I had a strange experience shortly after starting empagliflozin and arcabose.

On my weekly hike, I got four miles into it, and just ran out of gas. I had two miles to go on the ‘out’ leg, and it was clear there was no way I could continue. So I slowly mosied back to the beginning. This wasn’t just ‘having a bad day’, I’ve never turned around before, and I have done this hike more than 100 times.

So I stopped both empa and arca. After a couple of weeks, I started the arca again, and a few days thereafter (not immediately after starting), it was my impression I was running out of gas again. So I stopped arca again. Will start it up again shortly, and see what happens.

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