If you have Type 2 Diabetes, and lifestyle changes are not enough to control your blood glucose, typically, your provider will first start you on a single medicine.
For people who are overweight, metformin is usually the first medicine prescribed. If the single therapy doesn’t work, additional medicines can be added. Subsequent medications, if needed, are determined by other conditions such as cardiovascular, kidney and/or liver disease. Many people require treatment with 2, 3 or more medicines. If pill combinations don’t work, an injected medicine such as an incretin-based medicine, amylin analog or insulin may be prescribed.
Medicine combinations are used because different drugs target different parts of your body’s glucose regulation system. Rarely, and usually due to other medical conditions, it may be necessary to start medical treatment of Type 2 Diabetes with insulin therapy. Usually, however, insulin therapy is the last treatment prescribed and is added only after the oral medications or non-insulin injections don’t work.
In this section, you will learn about the non-insulin treatment options for glucose control in Type 2 Diabetes including the different medicines, how they work, doses, and side effects.
Type 2 Diabetes | Non-insulin medicines
There are seven types of non-insulin medicines used to treat Type 2 Diabetes:
- Metformin: Pills that reduce glucose production from the liver
- Thiazolidinediones (glitazones): Pills that enhance glucose removal from the blood stream
- Insulin releasing pills (secretagogues): Pills that increase insulin release from the pancreas
- Starch blockers: Pills that slow starch (sugar) absorption from the gut
- Incretin based therapies: Pills and injections that reduce glucose production in the liver and slow the absorption of food
- Amylin analogs: Injections that reduce glucose production in the liver and slow the absorption of food
- SGLT-2 inhibitors: Pills that increase glucose removal through the kidneys and urine
In this section, you also can review:
A Table of Non-Insulin Medications: A summary of all the oral medications and non-insulin injected therapies including the common doses and side effects.