Diabetes Medicines

Diabetes Medicines are prescribed by Diabetologist or other Attending Doctor when Diabetic Diet and Exercise do not bring down Blood Sugar levels to Normal. The following information does not serve to be prescription or recommendation of any type , please consult your Diabetologist or Physician about individual treatment options, DO NOT INDULGE in self medication as it may be very Harmful in Diabetes.

Diabetes Medicines may broadly Divided into Oral Hypoglycemic Agents ( OHA) or  Insulin or other injected Hypoglycemic agents.

OHA can further be categorized into:

Insulin Sensitizers:

make the cells of body more responsive to insulin being produced in the body thus lowering circulating Blood Sugar levels and decreasing the stress on pancreas to produce more Insulin Examples are Biguanides, Thiazolidenidiones. The Advantage of Insulin sentitizers is they almost never cause Hypoglycemia when taken alone favourably affect  Cholesterol and some of them may decrease weight as well...

Secretagogues:

Stimulate the pancreas to secrete Insulin insulin  when “asked “ to do so.They literally “squeeze” out all the insulin stores from the Beta cells, Different types of  such medicines are widely used varying in time of action, frequency of dosage, safety profile etc.. your doctor is the best judge on which one to prescribe.

Alpha Glucosidase Inhibitors:

They block the absorption of Glucose in the small intestine thus increasing the time period over which same amount of Glucose present in the food item is absorbed, if the Blood Sugar levels increase after meals or are not very high, these are very effective. But if a person taking any of this medicine develops hypoglycemia oral Glucose does not help as it is also not absorbed. Acarbose, Miglitol and the recent addition is Voglibose to this group of medicines.

DPP-4 Inhibitors:

By virtue of their complicated actions inside the intestines they do not allow Blood Sugar to rise after meals, they do not act directly on the Insulin producing Beta cells but rather their beneficial effect is due to the action on Alpha cells of pancreas by suppressing Glucagon- the Blood Sugar raising Hormone as opposed to Insulin.

Injectables:

Insulin:

This is identical  to the insulin produced by the Pancreas  which is deficient or ineffective in Diabetics. Insulin can only be taken by injections because it is degraded by liver if taken by mouth and rendered useless. There are different types of insulins available commercially with varying time period of action, from ultra short acting to ultra long acting. Different types of Insulin may be used together in a patient. Insulin is the only treatment option for Type I Diabetics.

GLP-I analogues

Or Glucagon Like Peptide -1 analogues - Decrease Blood Sugar by lowering Glucagon levels, they are ineffective in Type I Diabetics and can only be used for the treatment of  Type II Diabetes. These have been relatively recently added to the Diabetes treatment armament, major side effects noted so far are vomiting and associated  Gastric disturbances. Cost of these injects is also prohibitive for the majority of Diabetes patients.

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