What’s new in medical therapy of type 2 diabetes?

• Main Author: Matos, M. J.
• Publication Date: 2011
• Other Authors: Freitas, P., Carvalho, D.
• Format: Article
• Language: por
• Source: Repositório Científico de Acesso Aberto de Portugal (Repositórios Cientìficos)
• Download full: https://doi.org/10.34632/cadernosdesaude.2011.3043

Type 2 diabetes mellitus is a progressive disease with an increasing prevalence. The ideal antidiabetic agent is the one that allows good glycaemic control and is able to change the natural history of the disease, with consequent reduction of the morbidity and mortality associated to the complications of diabetes. Such antidiabetic agent has yet to demonstrate a good safety profile, namely absence of hypoglycaemias, weight gain or cardiovascular risk increase. After decades of stagnation, remarkable progress in diabetes therapy has been done in recent years. Some of the new antidiabetic agents are already in the market, namely incretin based therapies and amylin analogs, and other are still in investigation. Incretin based therapies (glucose‑like peptide‑1 analogs and dipeptidil‑peptidase 4 inhibitors) showed to be effective in A1c reduction, with low risk of hypoglycaemia and no weight gain (or even weight loss in the former). They also seem to slow disease  progression in early stages and to have an anti‑atherogenic action. The new anti‑diabetics, namely incretin based therapies, are promising, but still have to demonstrate long‑term effectiveness and safety as well as good cost‑effectiveness.