Friday, 16 November 2018

The truth is: Diabetes can be controlled! Read this post to learn more


Diabetes is a condition that has emerged as a major health concern and a major setback to the socio-economic situation of the countries across the globe. It puts on the financial stress on the families of affected family members as well.

A diabetic person suffers a lot on financial and health part. Diabetes is an irreversible disease, but it can be controlled with certain measures. With the rapid advancements in the fields of science and medicine, various drugs have been introduced to treat diabetes. The treatments for the same are getting better day-by-day.

There are 2 main types of diabetes:

Type 1: When there is no insulin formation in the body.

Type 2: When the body is not able to produce enough insulin, or the insulin produced is not used effectively by the body

The Type 1 diabetes can be treated with insulin injections and people affected by it should be careful about their diet and plan activities accordingly to avoid any further complications.

The Type 2 diabetes can be controlled by adapting a healthy lifestyle, oral medications and insulin also, in case other measures fail.

There are a lot of medications available in the market for diabetes that it becomes difficult to determine that which is the best. Here in this post, different medications for diabetes are discussed along with the effect that they cast on the body.

Drugs for Type 1 diabetes:

For the treatment of this diabetes, insulin is the main component and is used for the same. It replaces the missing insulin in the body and maintains the blood sugar level. Insulin is directly injected into the skin by the people suffering from the diabetes or with the help of a doctor.

There are a variety of insulin injections, varying on the account of duration of their effect and the time of their reaction. These different types of insulin are mentioned under:
  • Fast-reacting injections: They take 5-10 minutes to react and last for around 3-5 hours.
o   NovoLog (Insulin aspart)
o   Apidra (Insulin glulisine)
o   Humalog (Insulin lispro)
  • Brief-term reacting injections: They have their effect in about 30 minutes to 1 hour and last for 6-8 hours.
o   Regular insulin (Humulin R and Novolin R)
  • Moderate injections: they take 1-4 hours to have any effect but last for around 10-26 hours.
o   Insulin isophane, also known as NPH insulin (Humulin N and Novolin N)
  • Long lasting injections: Taking 1-2 hours to have an effect, these last in between 14-24 hours
o   Insulin detemir e.g. Levemir
o   Insulin glargine, e.g. Toujeo
  • Blended injections: These are the mixture of the injections mentioned above. They cast their effect in between 5 minutes to 1 hour and last for 10-24 hours.
o   Insulin aspart protamine and insulin aspart. For e.g. NovoLog Mix 50/50 and NovoLog Mix 70/30
o   Insulin lispro protamine and insulin lispro. For e.g. Humalog Mix50/50 and Humalog Mix75/25)
o   Insulin degludec. For e.g. Tresiba
o   NPH insulin and regular insulin Humulin. For e.g. 70/30 and Novolin 70/30
There is also an inhalable insulin available named Afrezza, which has its effect in 12-15 minutes and lasts for about 3 hours.

More drugs for Type 1 diabetes:

There are some non-insulin drugs as well that can be utilized for Type 1 diabetes treatment. These are:
  • Incretin mimetics: These simulate the hormone incretin which incites insulin post meals. These drugs include exenatide (Byetta, Bydureon), liraglutide (Victoza), and dulaglutide (Trulicity).
  • Amylin analogs: Pramlintide (Symlin) mimics another hormone, amylin, that helps with glucose regulation.
  • Glucagon: It helps in reversing blood sugar levels when they drop down as a result of insulin treatment.
Medicines for Type 2 diabetes:

For people suffering with this form of diabetes, insulin treatment can be used in the case where every other treatment has not shown the desired results. Though Type 2 diabetes can be controlled by living a healthy lifestyle, people prone to high blood glucose levels can be prescribed oral or non-insulin medicines to reduce the level of blood glucose.

Mentioned below are some of such drugs:
  • Sulfonylureas: This helps in improving the release of insulin in the blood through the pancreas. The newer drugs available have lesser side effects.
Sulfonylureas comprises of:
o  Glimepiride (Amaryl)
o  Glipizide (Glucotrol)
o  Glyburide (DiaBeta, Micronase, Glynase)

  • Meglitinides: These also boost up the secretion of insulin. They enhance the effectiveness of body in secreting insulin at the time of meals. These include:
o   Nateglinide (Starlix)
o  Repaglinide (Prandin)
  • Biguanides: They enhance the effectiveness of insulin & minimize the level of glucose the liver dispenses into blood. They also boost the consumption of blood glucose in the cells. Metformin is the sole such drug in the US.
  • Thiazolidinediones: They help minimizing the resistance of tissues to the influence of insulin. These are newer drugs, so a check is to be made on them strictly to figure out the potential safety issues. People having the risk of heart failure should avoid using this drug. It includes pioglitazone (Actos) and rosiglitazone (Avandia)·
  • Alpha-glucosidase inhibitors: They function in a way helping the carbohydrates to be digested slowly by our body thus maintaining a low blood sugar level post meal.
o   Acarbose (Precose)
o  Miglitol (Glyset)
  • Dipeptidyl peptidase inhibitors: These new kinds of medications are responsible for slowing down the glucose absorption.
o   Alogliptin (Nesina)
o  Linagliptin (Tradjenta)
o   Sitagliptin (Januvia)
o  Saxagliptin (Onglyza)
  • Sodium-glucose co-transporter 2 inhibitors: These cause the body to discharge more glucose into the urine from bloodstream. They also help in slight weight loss which is beneficial for people with Type 2 diabetes.
o   Canagliflozin (Invokana)
o  Dapagliflozin (Farxiga)
o   Empagliflozin (Jardiance)
  • Oral combination drugs: A combination of the drugs above is also available in form of new medications. Some of them are:
o   Alogliptin and metformin (Kazano)
o  Alogliptin and pioglitazone (Oseni)
o   Glipizide and metformin (Metaglip)
o   Repaglinide and metformin (PrandiMet)
o  Rosiglitazone and metformin (Avandamet)

There are 2 new drugs which have been recently approved for the treatment of diabetes. These drugs have been introduced to the pharmacies to help lower A1C in grown-ups. They are:
  • Ozempic (semiglutide): It is a 0.5 mg or 1 mg injectable medicine for adults suffering from Type 2 diabetes. These showcased remarkable effect in A1C reductions during clinical trials. It is a once-weekly glucagon-like peptide (GLP-1) receptor agonist that combined with diet and exercise can help in improving glycemic control.
  • Fiasp: It is a fast-paced, manual insulin which is invented to improve glycemic control in grown-ups suffering from Type 1 & Type 2 diabetes. Patients are advised to have the medicine before the meal or within 20 minutes of starting a meal. It surfaces in the blood in around 2.5 minutes.

Both these drugs are manufactured by Novo Nordisk and were sanctioned by FDA in 2017.

Turacoz Healthcare Solutions believe that a healthy lifestyle, which is a combination of healthy diet and exercise can help in controlling diabetes. The Diabetes Awareness Month is observed to spread awareness on this disease and also focuses on living a healthy lifestyle.

With the help of the above-mentioned drugs, diabetes can be controlled and monitored to a good extent. With the pace that technological and medical advancements are taking place, very soon more effective medicines shall be available for diabetic people which will help in effective treatment of the ailment.



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