# Nasal Spray Insulin Slows Dementias **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [September 19, 2011, 10:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nasal-spray-insulin-slows-dementias/596871 "2011-09-19T22:49:52Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 9\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Quasimodem](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/e274bd/32.png) [@Quasimodem](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Quasimodem)\ **Post date:** [September 19, 2011, 10:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nasal-spray-insulin-slows-dementias/596871/1 "2011-09-19T22:49:52Z")
I found [this](http://www.prohealth.com/library/showarticle.cfm?libid=16524) today. Tested on 104 people, but as with everything else, even if it does work as they say, it’ll be years before the FDA approves it for our use. So how fast is “fast-tracking”? Does it depend upon the drug? Thanks Q ---
**Author:** ![Bijou\_Drains](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bijou_drains/32/2814_2.png) [@Bijou\_Drains](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bijou_Drains)\ **Post date:** [September 20, 2011, 12:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nasal-spray-insulin-slows-dementias/596871/2 "2011-09-20T00:19:30Z")
Inhaled insulin was approved a few years back but it bombed because it was hard to use. So few people wanted to use it that it was taken off the market by the maker. ---
**Author:** ![Athena](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/35a633/32.png) [@Athena](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Athena)\ **Post date:** [September 20, 2011, 12:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nasal-spray-insulin-slows-dementias/596871/3 "2011-09-20T00:21:07Z")
> [@Bijou\_Drains](#): > > Inhaled insulin was approved a few years back but it bombed because it was hard to use. So few people wanted to use it that it was taken off the market by the maker. For diabetes management. The OP is talking about a completely different usage. ---
**Author:** ![Lynn\_Bodoni](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/e47c2d/32.png) [@Lynn\_Bodoni](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lynn_Bodoni)\ **Post date:** [September 20, 2011, 2:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nasal-spray-insulin-slows-dementias/596871/4 "2011-09-20T02:39:08Z")
> [@Bijou\_Drains](#): > > Inhaled insulin was approved a few years back but it bombed because it was hard to use. So few people wanted to use it that it was taken off the market by the maker. Yeah, it was on the market for two or three months, I believe. My doctor wanted to put me on it, and I’d have gone on it…but I see him about every three months. Between one visit and the next, the stuff had been put on the market and then withdrawn. Hardly a fair test, I think. ---
**Author:** ![rhubarbarin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/eb9ed0/32.png) [@rhubarbarin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rhubarbarin)\ **Post date:** [September 20, 2011, 3:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nasal-spray-insulin-slows-dementias/596871/5 "2011-09-20T03:45:04Z")
Reducing insulin resistance in dementia patients would have a similar effect. I’ve heard for a long time that dementia is a essentially a side-effect of the ever-increasing rates of metabolic syndrome (hallmarks being insulin resistance, high blood sugar, eventual diabetes, heart disease, central obesity). Best way to manage abnormal blood sugars long-term and increase insulin sensitivity is with a diet low in carbohydrates, with a majority of calories coming from fats and protein. I honestly think it’s pretty fucked up that the preferred solution is going to be injecting dementia patients with ever-increasing amounts of insulin to buy them a few more functional months or years. No one makes money from individuals making their own life-saving lifestyle changes, however. ---
**Author:** ![BigT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bigt/32/12044_2.png) [@BigT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BigT)\ **Post date:** [September 20, 2011, 7:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nasal-spray-insulin-slows-dementias/596871/6 "2011-09-20T07:48:11Z")
People with dementia often don’t have enough time left to make lifestyle changes. You need quick changes to help starve off the dementia before it gets worse. And, anyways, there’s a lot of money in getting people to eat healthier. Health food costs a bundle. You don’t have to let people know about low cost alternatives. Also, as long as a medicine has been approved at all, it doesn’t have to be approved for any other use. The only problem is getting people to manufacture it when it wasn’t selling well enough to make a profit. Did you know that Celexa has not been approved for OCD use, and yet is used all the time for this? In this case it’s a marketing thing, as the drug itself has been shown to work as well as any other SSRI, but it’s in generic and thus there’s not a lot of monetary interest in applying for FDA approval. And since doctors use it anyways, what’s the point? ---
**Author:** ![Athena](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/35a633/32.png) [@Athena](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Athena)\ **Post date:** [September 20, 2011, 1:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nasal-spray-insulin-slows-dementias/596871/7 "2011-09-20T13:28:31Z")
> [@rhubarbarin](#): > > Reducing insulin resistance in dementia patients would have a similar effect. I’ve heard for a long time that dementia is a essentially a side-effect of the ever-increasing rates of metabolic syndrome (hallmarks being insulin resistance, high blood sugar, eventual diabetes, heart disease, central obesity). > > Best way to manage abnormal blood sugars long-term and increase insulin sensitivity is with a diet low in carbohydrates, with a majority of calories coming from fats and protein. > > I honestly think it’s pretty fucked up that the preferred solution is going to be injecting dementia patients with ever-increasing amounts of insulin to buy them a few more functional months or years. No one makes money from individuals making their own life-saving lifestyle changes, however. I think you’re drastically minimizing the difficulties involved with changing your diet so drastically. I eat pretty healthily; I’m not overweight, and I exercise regularly. I had to go practically carb-free for about 6 months to regulate my blood sugars (I was diagnosed as diabetic, but it took a long time for them to figure out just what kind, and in the meantime, I regulated it mostly via diet). I would not want to live that way forever, and I wasn’t able to maintain my weight on it. It’s very hard to not eat carbohydrates to that level, and the resulting diet isn’t particularly healthy. After all, not all carbs are white bread and candy; vegetables and whole grains are also carby. Meat & fat in large quantities does not make a healthy diet. Insulin is one of the best-understood drugs there is out there. I don’t even really think of it as a drug, after all, a normal working body produces it naturally. If it helps with dementia, I see no reason to not use it. ---
**Author:** ![rhubarbarin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/eb9ed0/32.png) [@rhubarbarin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rhubarbarin)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2011, 2:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nasal-spray-insulin-slows-dementias/596871/8 "2011-09-21T02:49:25Z")
**Athena,** I’m not talking completely out of my ass - I have been eating a ‘restricted’, lower-carb diet for two years now. Once I figured out that conventional health advice was completely backwards for me, I changed everything drastically and haven’t wavered. I’m enjoying vastly improved health and well-being, that is more than enough motivation for me personally. But I do understand it’s more challenging for a lot of people, who have things to deal with I have never experienced and probably never will (I don’t have emotional attachments to food, for instance). I think I am a born health nut, I will never understand people who are not interested in managing their own preventative care and long-term health, even if that means not eating pizza any more. I can’t help but feel that if the recommendations of the government and health care industry weren’t so deeply entangled with the interests of the corporations that support a large portion of our economy by selling processed grain-based foods, there could only be improved health. Frankly I consider much health advice I hear from ‘medical professionals’ and government boards to be not only wrong, but dangerous to long-term health. I feel as though America is deliberately poisoning its citizens, and all the new medications and treatments that are being created to give slightly better quality of life once you’re fully in the grip of syndrome X from all those ‘heart healthy whole grains’ and ‘low saturated fat!’ products (which until recently, meant trans fats, which ooops, are REALLY proven to kill people) don’t make me feel any better about that. /paranoid conspiracy theory I think it’s misleading to refer to insulin as a drug - it’s a vitally important hormone, one that in a normal healthy metabolic system is manufactured by the body in well-timed, perfectly calibrated amounts. When this system is dis-regulated (as in the case of Type II diabetes and chronic insulin resistance), it is possible to buy some time and improve various side-effects by injecting insulin into a body which is ever-more-incapable of responding in a normal way to the effects of this hormone. And that is due to chronically elevated blood sugar, which is easily (IMO) managed by monitoring the amount and type of dietary carbohydrate consumed, and adjusting according to individual needs. And yet [these](http://www.diabetes.org/food-and-fitness/food/what-can-i-eat/making-healthy-food-choices.html) are the dietary recommendations of the American Diabetes Association. Lean and low-fat everything, don’t forget those whole grains, and stop being so fat (yeah, right). I am so glad my MIL’s doctors tell her to eat almost the exact opposite - she’s kept off 40 lbs and has totally normal blood sugars now as long as she sticks to her low carb plan. I’m not at all against using insulin to improve quality of life for people with quickly advancing dementia. I’m just saying I think our health as a country is fucked, and this is a prime example. ---
**Author:** ![Bijou\_Drains](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bijou_drains/32/2814_2.png) [@Bijou\_Drains](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bijou_Drains)\ **Post date:** [September 22, 2011, 12:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nasal-spray-insulin-slows-dementias/596871/9 "2011-09-22T00:00:25Z")
> [@Lynn\_Bodoni](#): > > Yeah, it was on the market for two or three months, I believe. My doctor wanted to put me on it, and I’d have gone on it…but I see him about every three months. Between one visit and the next, the stuff had been put on the market and then withdrawn. Hardly a fair test, I think. it was sold for 13 months > **[Inhalable insulin](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inhalable_insulin)** > > Inhalable insulin is a powdered form of insulin, delivered with an inhaler into the lungs where it is absorbed. In general, inhaled insulins have been more rapidly absorbed than subcutaneous injected insulin, with faster peak concentration in serum and more rapid metabolism. > Exubera, developed by Inhale Therapeutics (later named Nektar Therapeutics), became the first inhaled insulin product to be marketed, in 2006 by Pfizer, but poor sales led Pfizer to withdraw it in 2007. Afrezza, a monomeric ...