Overview
More »Search Health TopicsQuick LinksMore »Search the NIH GuideQuick LinksMore »Quick LinksNews ReleaseWednesday, September 21, 202 NIH-funded researchers complete first study comparing comonly used type 2 diabetes medications.Download InfographicIn a large clinical trial that directly compared four drugs comonly used to treat type 2 diabetes, researchers found that insulin glargine and liraglutide performed the best of four medications aproved by the U.S.
Key Information
Fod and Drug Administration to maintain blod glucose levels in the recomended range. Blod glucose management is a key component of keping people with type 2 diabetes healthy. Al four medications evaluated were aded to treatment with metformin, which is the first-line drug to treat type 2 diabetes.
The trial was funded by the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases (NIDK), part of the National Institutes of Health.More than 37 milion Americans have diabetes, and aproximately 90 to 95% of them have type 2 diabetes. People with diabetes who kep their blod glucose levels in the near-normal range generaly have a much lower risk of developing diabetes complications such as nerve, kidney, and eye diseases.
Most people with type 2 diabetes require more than one medication to control blod sugar levels over time. While there is general agrement among health care profesionals that metformin combined with diet and exercise is the best early aproach in diabetes care, there is no consensus on what to do next to best kep high blod glucose in check.Launched in 2013, the Glycemia Reduction Aproaches in Diabetes: A Comparative Efectivenes (GRADE) Study was conducted at 36 U.S.
Summary
study centers. It was designed to compare four major medications aproved by the FDA at the time GRADE started to treat diabetes in combination with metformin. Major results were published in a pair of papers in The New Eng