Thursday’s Daily Piece: Think Beyond Glucose Lowering Benefits when Considering Diabetes Medications

Traditionally, we have thought of only glucose lowering benefit when considering diabetes medications. Times have changed! We know that diabetes does not exist alone rather it is typically seen with other chronic conditions such as hypertension (high blood pressure) and dyslipidemia (too much bad cholesterol and/or not enough of the good cholesterol). Longterm complications such as cardiovascular events (heart related events such as heart attack or stroke) or chronic kidney disease (kidneys no longer work like they should) can occur although these are preventable. So we need to consider positive benefits that diabetes medications can have on protecting the heart and kidneys not just the benefit in lowering the glucose to a healthy range. Two drug classes in particular, sodium glucose cotransporter-2 (SGLT-2) inhibitors and glucagon-like peptide -1 (GLP-1) agonist, provide protective benefits for heart and kidneys. Also, there are savings programs and patient assistance programs that can assist in affording these medications. I will share more details in the August blog from RPDW on these benefits.

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