Are All Type 2 Diabetes Medications Created Equal?

For high-risk patients, some drug classes should be considered preferentially to lower risk for mortality and other adverse outcomes.

Many therapeutic options exist for patients with type 2 diabetes, but we have few head-to-head trials in which newer glucose-lowering medications have been compared with each other and with older agents to guide clinical decision making. Now, researchers have compared the efficacy and safety of 21 antidiabetic agents (in 9 drug classes) with one another (and with placebos) in a meta-analysis that included 450 randomized trials and more than 320,000 patients.

Results were as follows:

Among treatment-naive patients with low cardiovascular (CV) risk, all drugs and drug classes had similar efficacy in lowering glycosylated hemoglobin (HbA_1c) except for dipeptidyl peptidase-4 (DPP-4) inhibitors, which were less effective in glucose-lowering.
Among …

Reviewing Author

Daniel D. Dressler, MD, MSc, MHM, FACP

Disclosures

RoyaltiesMcGraw-Hill; Elsevier

Editorial BoardsMedical Clinics of North America; Caribbean Medical Journal International Advisory Panel (2021–2026)

Daniel D. Dressler, MD, MSc, MHM, FACP

Disclosures

RoyaltiesMcGraw-Hill; Elsevier

Editorial BoardsMedical Clinics of North America; Caribbean Medical Journal International Advisory Panel (2021–2026)

Are All Type 2 Diabetes Medications Created Equal?

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Reviewing Author