2 Advances in oral and insulin treatments for diabetes

Treatments for Type 2 Diabetes

G lucagon-like peptide-1 (GLP-1) is produced by the proglucagon gene in L-cells of the small intestine in response to nutrients.1 It is an incretin – a gut hormone – that is responsible for the greater insulin response to oral versus IV glucose.2 Its major mechanism of action occurs through stimulation of glucose-dependent insulin release from the pancreatic islets. In addition to its insulinot...

Insulin and Oral Drugs for Diabetes Mellitus

Carbohydrates, particularly glucose, are an important source of fuel for living organisms. Glucose is a major energy source for all cells, and some tissues (e.g., brain) need a continuous delivery of glucose. Maintenance of serum glucose concentrations within a normal physiological range, critical to the maintenance of normal fuel use, is primarily accomplished by two pancreatic hormones, insul...

Novel treatments for type 2 diabetes.

Oral Insulin: A Comparison With Subcutaneous Regular Human Insulin in Patients With Type 2 Diabetes

OBJECTIVE To determine the pharmacokinetic and pharmacodynamic properties of an oral insulin (OI) formulation compared with subcutaneously injected regular human insulin (RHI). RESEARCH DESIGN AND METHODS Ten male patients with type 2 diabetes (means +/- SD; A1C 7.0 +/- 1.1%; BMI 28.3 +/- 2.7 kg/m(2)) received either 300 units of insulin combined with 400 mg of delivery agent orally or 15 uni...

Delay in starting insulin after failure of other treatments in patients with type 2 diabetes mellitus.

BACKGROUND AND AIM In type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM), therapies to maintain blood glucose control usually fail after several years. The aim of this study was to estimate the time to insulin initiation, the glycemic burden that patients are exposed prior to conversion to insulin and their HbA1c level at that time and a year later. MATERIAL AND METHODS Five hundred nine patients were included ...