Re:The Cystic Fibrosis Breakthrough That Changed Everything
by pedalpete on Saturday March 09, 2024 @06:12PM
(#39655411)
Can you elaborate on the weight gain? I'm curious why that is a downside of the Trikafta? You say with CF the pancreas is blocked, so why did the weight come as a side-effect of the drug, and not with the disease initially?
[ Parent
| on HN ]
Re:The Cystic Fibrosis Breakthrough That Changed Everything
by bdcravens on Saturday March 09, 2024 @06:22PM
(#39655455)
Some of the blockage of the pancreas is due to scarring, some of it to thick mucus. The scarring can't be undone, but with a reduction of mucus blockage, food may be digested better. That said, I think that there's other causes, given how fast most who start Trikafta gain weight.
Re:The Cystic Fibrosis Breakthrough That Changed Everything
by abhisuri97 on Saturday March 09, 2024 @06:25PM
(#39655464)
Med student here. My guess is the following:
So with CF your pancreas can’t secrete many of the enzymes that are necessary to actually digest food. You can take medications to help with that digestion, but regardless, you aren’t actually getting all the calories in your food with CF because it isn’t making its way into your body (notably patients with CF have steatorrhea which is fat in their stool because they can’t absorb a lot of fat from their foods like a non-CF patient). The med helps the pancreas recover some of its ability to secrete digestive enzymes and so patients can now eat and get more from their food. The issue is that there needs to be a recalibration in terms of how much patients are eating. Previously a 2000 calorie diet may not have gotten them so far because they didn’t absorb much of it, but now they’re absorbing a lot more of it. Plus increased work of breathing with CF expends more calories compared to a non-CF patient (and patients on this drug).
Re:The Cystic Fibrosis Breakthrough That Changed Everything
by joney_baloney on Sunday March 10, 2024 @12:09AM
(#39656867)
This is exactly right.
Source: have CF.