Byetta has been linked to acute pancreatitis.

The FDA is advising anybody who is taking Byetta and experiences severe abdominal pain, with nausea/vomiting or without, to contact their health care professional immediately. The FDA is also advising doctors to stop giving Byetta to patients who are thought to have acute pancreatitis, and not resume treatment with said drug if they cannot find another cause for their acute pancreatitis.

Link between insulin and drug addictions found

Okay, this one I found a little confusing to sort through so feel free to read it and correct my assumptions. It seems that in rats with type 1 diabetes, drugs such as amphetamines did not increase agitation. Stimulants normally flood the brain with dopamine and in the absence of insulin, this didn’t happen.

“This is really the first mechanistic connection in vivo between diabetes and amphetamine action,” Galli said. “This offers a completely new perspective on the influence of this disease (diabetes) on brain function, as well as diseases with altered dopamine signaling, such as schizophrenia and ADHD.”

What I’m wondering is what this means for people with type 2 diabetes. Because we don’t use insulin effectively, our bodies produce more insulin to try to compensate. Some of the meds we take increase insulin and/or we inject insulin.

Dopamine is commonly associated with the pleasure system of the brain, providing feelings of enjoyment and reinforcement to motivate a person proactively to perform certain activities. Dopamine is released (particularly in areas such as the nucleus accumbens and ventral tegmental area) by naturally rewarding experiences such as food, sex,[4][5] use of certain drugs and neutral stimuli that become associated with them. This theory is often discussed in terms of drugs such as cocaine and amphetamines, which seem to directly or indirectly lead to the increase of dopamine in these areas, and in relation to neurobiological theories of chemical addiction, arguing that these dopamine pathways are pathologically altered in addicted persons. Wikipedia

So, food increases dopamine, insulin has some role in dopamine and addictive behaviors – do type 2 diabetics have a higher propensity for addictions? Is this a chemical explanation for why behavior change is so difficult (there are many purely psychological reasons that behavior change is difficult)? Interesting research and questions – which are not actually addressed in the article but I’m just wondering if there is a connection.