GLP-1s will get more efficient<\/p>\n
For years, diabetes treatment has been very \u201cglucocentric\u201d \u2013 with an intense focus on bringing the blood sugar down. This is certainly very important, both in terms of your everyday health, and also preventing long-term complications such as kidney, nerve or sight damage. Now though, there are some brilliant drugs coming through.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s easy to forget GLP-1s were originally developed for the treatment of T2, mimicking glucagon-like peptide-1 (or GLP-1), a hormone that\u2019s naturally released by the gut after eating and which tells the pancreas to release insulin and help blood glucose levels return to normal. But these drugs are now also showing clear benefits outside of glucose control, for example in reducing the risk for having a heart attack or stroke.<\/p>\n
I predict that GLP-1s are going to become even more efficient, the side effects will lessen, most injectable versions will be replaced by tablets and as drugs fall out of patent and prices drop, they will become more accessible.<\/p>\n
There\u2019s also a triple-hormone injection, Retatrutide (or triple-G), which is currently being trialled with results suggesting it can lower blood sugar levels in people with T2 diabetes. It contains pharma versions of not just GLP-1 and glucose-dependent insulinotropic polypeptide (GIP), which are both in Mounjaro, but also the hormone glucagon, which plays a role in revving up metabolism.<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, there are SGLT2 inhibitors which are bringing huge benefits to people with T2 diabetes. They work to lower blood sugar by making the kidneys urinate excess sugar. They are not a silver bullet, as sugary urine can cause some people to experience recurrent UTIs or genital thrush, but they hold huge promise.<\/p>\n
We\u2019re also seeing advances in treating the side effects of living with diabetes. Certain diabetes medications and particularly insulin can cause a \u201chypo\u201d (short for hypoglycaemia, when the level of glucose in your blood drops below normal limits after taking too much insulin or missing a meal) and they are incredibly frightening.<\/p>\n
Historically, they\u2019ve been treated with sweet food or gels to get the blood glucose up very quickly. But that doesn\u2019t help with the \u201chypo hangover\u201d \u2013 where, even after the blood glucose readings are back to normal, brain fog persists as it takes the brain a while to efficiently use glucose as a fuel. Hypo treatment drink Klario, a new product, contains glucose to raise blood sugar as well as an alternative ketone-based fuel source that the brain can use.<\/p>\n
We can drive diabetes down and it\u2019s vital we do<\/p>\n
The T2 landscape has become unrecognisable in the 30 years since I was a medical student, and if we fast forward another three decades from here, there\u2019s no reason to believe it won\u2019t have transformed once more \u2013 but for the better.<\/p>\n
Back in the late 1950s, when as many as 70 per cent of men smoked, it might have been inconceivable to imagine a world where people weren\u2019t allowed to smoke in offices, hospitals, pubs, on trains and planes. But it has happened, and with it cases of lung cancer in men have fallen by almost 40 per cent since the early 1990s.<\/p>\n
I believe we could find a world where supermarkets label UPFs with health warnings and they become highly taxed, just as cigarettes are now. I think incorporating movement into our days will start to be taken very seriously by schools and employers, and metabolic testing will be standard for anyone with any of the five signs of insulin resistance, from an increased waist size to high blood pressure.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s bold, but it\u2019s vital, because we can\u2019t be in a situation where we allow insulin resistance to become the norm. The message I reinforce with my patients who have prediabetes and T2 \u2013 particularly early on in the illness \u2013 is that this is a reversible condition. You really can stop it yourself through your lifestyle. And once insulin resistance melts away, and your body\u2019s cells start hearing insulin again, good health will be yours.<\/p>\n
As told to Amy Packer<\/p>\n
Dr Saira Hameed is a consultant endocrinologist at Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust and a senior tutor and honorary clinical senior lecturer at Imperial College London. She holds a PhD in neuroendocrinology. Her new book, Signals, The Inside Story of our Hormones (\u00a320; Faber) is out now<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"GLP-1s will get more efficient For years, diabetes treatment has been very \u201cglucocentric\u201d \u2013 with an intense focus…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":562113,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[275],"tags":[90,2675,18,135,8547,475,474,19,17,197912,1702,46523,172075],"class_list":["post-562112","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-healthcare","tag-blood","tag-diabetes","tag-eire","tag-health","tag-health-and-fitness","tag-health-care","tag-healthcare","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-nhs-national-health-service","tag-standard","tag-top-story","tag-us-content"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/116840725832444720","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/562112","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=562112"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/562112\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/562113"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=562112"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=562112"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=562112"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}