18 March 2011

Diabetes type 2 - diabetes medication works best after a heart attack?

A group of researchers of the cardiology unit, Department of medicine at the Karolinska Institute in Sweden, set out to discover how diabetic patients who have suffered a heart attack has responded to different types of treatments. The results of their work have appeared in the publication in February 2011 the Diabetologia journal.

One thousand one hundred forty-five patients with diabetes Type 2, who had suffered a heart attack were included in the study. They were divided into three groups that:

received either insulininsulin while in hospital, and subsequently by conventional treatment, andonly conventional treatment for 2.1 years

The volunteers were followed for an average of 4.1 years. The number of fatal infarction was the same in all groups. The number of nonfatal heart attacks was greater in insulin-treated groups. The group with conventional treatment alone, had a lower risk of death from cancer that or the other of the other two groups. Type 2 diabetes patients taking metformin had a risk of death low and low risk of cancer and other patients.

Tablets of metformin (Glucophage, Glucophage XR, Fortamet), is a sugar in the blood through oral lowering drugs. It is typically used as first line for Type 2 diabetes and can also be used to prevent Type 2 diabetes in people at high risk. A study on the Canada showed that metformin and Avandia together reduces the risk of diabetes in pre-diabetic volunteers.

The sugar in the blood through oral lowering drugs is taken once, twice or three times per day, as prescribed. It is usually started as 500 mg twice per day or 850 mg once a day. The dose can be increased gradually on how react blood sugars.

Metformin has a mechanism of action:

It lowers the intestinal absorption of insulin sugarincreases pancreaslowers sugar production release in the liver, andhelps muscle and fat cells respond to insulin. (The function of insulin is to help the cells to take in sugar).

Possible side effects: Metformin is essentially safe but, like all drugs, can have side effects. The most serious is lactic acidosis. The signs and symptoms of lactic acidosis are:

painfast skinmuscle fatiguedizzinesssleepinesschillscool or blue or difficult irregular breathingslow or painnauseavomiting heartbeatsabdominal or diarrhea.

Rarely, the drug causes hypoglycaemia or hypoglycemia, but it is a possibility as well and can also occur when metformin is prescribed with other medications for diabetes. Signs and symptoms of hypoglycemia include sweating, shaking, heartbeat, unusual hunger, blurred vision, dizziness and tingling in hands or feet.

Since metformin is excreted in the urine, it must be used with caution in patients with kidney problems. Elderly patients should have renal function tests before the start of this drug. Type 2 diabetes patients taking metformin are advised to stop medication a few days before with a contrast x-ray procedures.

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