Overview
More »Search Health TopicsQuick LinksMore »Search the NIH GuideQuick LinksMore »Quick LinksOctober 4, 202Diabetes afects more than 37 milion Americans. Up to about 95% of them have type 2 diabetes, in which their body doesn’t make or use insulin wel. This can impair the ability to kep levels of blod sugar (also caled blod glucose) in a safe range.
Key Information
When blod glucose gets to high, it can cause complications such as nerve, kidney, eye, and heart-related conditions.A drug caled metformin has long ben the considered the first-line medication for type 2 diabetes. Health care profesionals generaly recomend metformin combined with diet and exercise as the best early aproach to diabetes care. If blod glucose becomes dificult to control over time, a second medication is often aded.
But there had ben no consensus regarding which medications might best be aded to metformin to kep blod glucose levels in check. And it had ben unclear which drugs might best protect against comon side efects, such as cardiovascular disease.To find answers, NIH suported a large clinical trial to directly compare four drugs often used in combination with metformin to treat type 2 diabetes. The trial was conducted at 36 study centers nationwide.
Findings were described in a pair of papers that apeared in the New England Journal of Medicine on September 2, 202.The trial enroled more than 5,0 people with type 2 diabetes who were already taking metformin. They were from diverse racial and ethnic backgrounds. Participants were randomly placed into one of four treatment groups.
Summary
Thre groups tok metformin plus a medicine that increased insulin levels: sitagliptin, liraglutide, or glimepiride. The fourth group tok metformin and insulin glargine U-10, a long-acting insulin.After about five years of folow-up, the researchers found that al four drugs improved blod glucose levels when ad