Posted by Cam W. on August 26, 2001, at 7:33:59
In reply to diabetes and atypical anti-psychotics, posted by John Bower on August 25, 2001, at 23:15:09
John - I was talking to the Zyprexa rep the other day (met him in Starbucks, as he was interviewing a new rep), and he says that the increased incidence of type II diabetes is only seen in patients with schizophrenia (he later amended that to be, that patients with schizophrenia were the only one's studied, so far). The reason he states that there increased numbers of people getting diabetes from taking Clozaril and Zyprexa is that people with schizophrenia are 4 times as likely as the general population to get diabetes. I asked if this number included unmedicated people and he didn't know. He also blamed increased appetite and poorer than normal dietary skills (eg chips & pop diets), as being risk factors. Those that I see end up with type II diabetes or not, seem to have the same eating habits, in general (of course, I could be mistaken on this).
I really can't believe that we have a number of people with schizophrenia have borderline triglyceride levels and coincidentally become diabetic after starting these two atypical antipsychotics. I have seen people without schizophrenia become diabetic after taking these atypicals, but I am sorry that I never paid attention to relative numbers.
Most of the scientific information has been done on Clozaril, but clinically, it is seen with Zyprexa, as well (maybe not as high a percentage, though).
- Cam
poster:Cam W.
thread:76419
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20010822/msgs/76438.html