Recently I heard about a drug that helps against insulin resistance.
It does so by increasing the number of insulin receptors per cell,
therefore increasing insulin sensitivity.
This would lead to lower insulin levels.
Which in turn could be expected to prevent the many ill effects of high
insulin levels, like "bad" prostaglandin production.
I did a search on metformin and it appears that that's one of this drugs.
Can you confirm that?

CR could work in the same way (prolonged low insulin levels).

Fine. There's one thing for me to worry about: why on earthe *does* the
cell lower the count of insulin receptors? (Leading to the ill effects)
Is it only that no proper fatty acids, like 18:3, are available to make
the cell walls permeable enough?
Or is it that the cell wants to protect itself against beeing flooded by
nutrients (mainly glucose) while not beeing able to really use it
(possible for example by a lack of energy vitamins like thiamin or alpha
linilenic acid)?

While the drug may be not the ideal thing on the long term, a dietary
regime which leads to low insulin production should be preferred.
Like paleo.
Or, for a beginning, like limiting the biggest insulin raisers.
White potatoes, sugar, white flour products.
..

regards

Amadeus
( http://www.geocities.com/paleolix/#insulin )



Sharon Giles wrote:
> Scientists discover anti-ageing effects of diabetes drug
> http://www.inpharm.com/External/InpH/1,2688,1-4-0-0-inp_intelligence_news-0-45815,00.html
>
> [Published: 24 April 2003 Source: Espicom Business Intelligence]
>
> A drug used to treat diabetes has been found to produce anti-ageing effects
> similar to those of caloric restriction (CR), an experimental method that
> retards ageing, prevents age-related diseases, prolongs youth and extends
> life span.
>
> Researchers at BioMarker Pharmaceuticals have discovered that metformin can
> mimic changes in gene expression found in CR mice, which live longer than
> normally-fed mice. Metformin has also been found to extend life span in
> mice
> by 20 per cent.
>
> CR is a difficult regimen to apply in humans. BioMarker's goal is to
> develop
> therapies that mimic the effects of CR to enable people to live longer,
> healthier lives. Until recently, the only accepted method of evaluating
> therapies for their anti-ageing effects was their ability to extend maximum
> life span. However, life span studies take a long time.
> To combat this problem, BioMarker uses high-density DNA microarrays to
> detect gene expression quickly in thousands of genes at a time. BioMarker
> has found that 70 per cent of the gene expression changes in ageing mice
> are
> reversed in only two to four weeks in CR mice. By comparing gene expression
> in metformin-treated animals with gene expression in CR animals, BioMarker
> discovered that metformin might be an anti-ageing drug.
>
>
>
>
>
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