What is diazoxide used for?
What is diazoxide used for?
Diazoxide is used to manage symptoms of hypoglycemia (low blood sugar) that is caused by pancreas cancer, surgery, or other conditions. Diazoxide works by preventing release of insulin from the pancreas.
How does diazoxide treat hypoglycemia?
Diazoxide raises blood sugar by slowing the release of insulin from the pancreas. Diazoxide is used to treat low blood sugar (hypoglycemia) caused by certain cancers or other conditions that can make the pancreas release too much insulin. This medicine is for use in adults and children as young as infants.
How is hyperinsulinism treated?
Medical therapy is the treatment of choice. Patients with hyperinsulinism often require multiple medications to maintain normoglycemia. Patients with severe hyperinsulinism may be refractory to medical therapy and may require excision of a portion of or the entire pancreas.
What kind of drug is diazoxide?
Diazoxide is a thiazide drug, but has no diuretic (“water pill”) effects like other thiazides. Diazoxide should not be used to treat low blood sugar from poor nutrition/diet (functional hypoglycemia).
Is diazoxide safe?
Safety Announcement The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is warning that a serious lung condition called pulmonary hypertension, which is high pressure in the blood vessels leading to the lungs, has been reported in infants and newborns treated with Proglycem (diazoxide) for low blood sugar.
What are the side effects to diazoxide?
The main side effects are initially fluid retention (increased swelling of the feet, hands, and face), increased weight gain from excessive water being stored in the body and in small infants, this can cause heart failure due to fluid overload.
Is diazoxide a vasodilator?
Diazoxide is a direct rapid-acting vasodilator that decreases total peripheral resistance with a reflex increase in heart rate and cardiac output. The compensatory increase in cardiac output and heart rate can be blocked by concomitant beta blocker therapy.
Does Hyperinsulinism go away?
These genetic forms of HI do not go away, but in some cases, may become easier to treat as the child gets much older. Babies born small for gestational age, or prematurely, may develop hypoglycemia due to excessive insulin secretion.
Is Hyperinsulinism a disease?
Hyperinsulinism (HI) is a disease characterized by inappropriate secretion of insulin. Insulin is a hormone secreted by a specialized type of cells in the pancreas called the beta cells.
Can diazoxide cause hair growth?
A later side effect is the increased growth of hair on the body including not only the head, but also on the face, arms, legs, and back. This is not a sexual type of hair (pubic hair or underarm hair), but rather an increase in the normal body hair found in all infants and children.
How do you treat hyperinsulinemia naturally?
Exercise. Exercise or any physical activity can be effective in improving your body’s sensitivity to insulin. This improvement reduces insulin resistance, a main cause of hyperinsulinemia. Exercise can also reduce obesity, which may be an underlying cause of this condition.
Does hyperinsulinism go away?
How does diazoxide work in the pancreas?
DIAZOXIDE – blocks release of insulin in the beta cells of the pancreas. DIURIL – helps to release the extra fluid retention caused by taking Diazoxide OCTREOTIDE – decreases the amount of insulin released by the beta cells of the pancreas. GLUCAGON – a hormone that releases glucose from the liver stores into the bloodstream.
How does diazoxide work to prevent hypoglycemia?
In this condition the potassium channel is also functioning normally but the defect is at another site in the cell. Therefore, in this condition, Diazoxide, by acting through the potassium channel, works very well to prevent hypoglycemia.
Why is diazoxide used in children with glutamate dehydrogenase hyperinsulinism?
Children with this syndrome all have normal potassium channels and thus Diazoxide works on this channel and prevents insulin secretion. As a result, most patients with glutamate dehydrogenase hyperinsulinism will be responsive to Diazoxide.
What happens when diazoxide does not work properly?
In cases where the channel is present but not functioning properly, Diazoxide may work a little or not at all.