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Making sense of newer treatment options for type 2 diabetes
Author(s) -
Lee Phong Ching,
Hare Matthew J. L.,
Bach Leon A.
Publication year - 2018
Publication title -
internal medicine journal
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.596
H-Index - 70
eISSN - 1445-5994
pISSN - 1444-0903
DOI - 10.1111/imj.13947
Subject(s) - medicine , incretin , metformin , type 2 diabetes mellitus , type 2 diabetes , diabetes mellitus , intensive care medicine , clinical trial , adverse effect , endocrinology
Over the past decade, several new medications have been developed to treat type 2 diabetes mellitus. Large‐scale outcome trials have been performed with patients at high cardiovascular risk to assess the cardiovascular safety of these agents. These trials are changing the landscape of diabetes therapy with evidence beyond safety to cardiovascular benefits of sodium‐glucose cotransporter 2 (SGLT‐2) inhibitors and some glucagon‐like peptide‐1 receptor agonists. This review provides an overview of incretin‐based therapies and SGLT‐2 inhibitors with a particular focus on the results of published cardiovascular outcome trials, which have also provided unique opportunities to evaluate uncommon but potentially serious adverse events of these newer agents. The cardiovascular benefits of SGLT‐2 inhibitors and some glucagon‐like peptide‐1 receptor agonists suggest that they may be the preferred choice, usually as an add‐on to metformin, for patients with type 2 diabetes mellitus at high cardiovascular risk.