New anti-diabetic drug has less side-effects

Diabetics take note: Your medicine could be harming you.

This was disclosed by Mayo Clinic researchers who said that sulfonylureas - medications used for decades to lower the rising blood sugar of diabetics - have certain side-effects that patients may not tolerate.

Dr. Bruce Zimmerman, an endocrinologist at Mayo Clinic in Minnesota, said these side-effects include weight gain and some types of heart problems.

"The sulfonylureas have been the main medication for Type 2 diabetes for many years. Disadvantages of sulfonylureas are that they may cause blood sugar to go too low (hypoglycemia) and that over time, their effectiveness tends to diminish," said Zimmerman.

Hypoglycemia - which is characterized by exhaustion and fainting - usually occurs when diabetics skip meals or don't eat between meals. This is because of the prolonged action of sulfonylurea which constantly stimulates the pancreas to release insulin to burn up blood sugar (glucose) from food.

If the patient fails to eat on time, the continuous burn-up of glucose causes a severe drop in blood sugar leading to hypoglycemia.

For most diabetics, this strict schedule is difficult to follow, the reason why many of them fail to take their medicines on time.

This compliance problem, in turn, can be dangerous for diabetics since it can lead to complications like cardiovascular disease, kidney failure, blindness and amputation of limbs.

Wouldn't it be nice if diabetics could eat when they want to - not because they have to - without suffering from hypoglycemia?

Taking this cue, researchers at the Danish pharmaceutical company Novo Nordisk recently unveiled its latest breakthrough - NovoNorm (repaglinide).

Similar in action to sulfonylurea, NovoNorm effectively lowers blood glucose levels quickly. Unlike sulfonylurea, it has a short duration of action, meaning it stimulates the pancreas to release insulin enough to digest one meal. This greatly reduces the risk of hypoglycemia and frees diabetics from a strict meal schedule.

With NovoNorm, diabetics can eat anytime -- when they want to. They simply take one dose of NovoNorm with one meal. If they miss a meal, they just skip the dose.

"The current drugs available in the market act for a long time, causing the pancreas to release insulin the whole day whether the patient eats or not. This will put extra strain on the pancreas. NovoNorm offers Type 2 diabetics a flexible lifestyle as mealtimes don't need to be fixed and additional snacks - to prevent hypoglycemia - are not needed," explained Dr. Lars Nellerman Jorgensen, regional medical director of Novo Nordisk Asia Pacific.

Novo Nordisk is a worldwide pharmaceutical leader in diabetes care with offices in 61 countries and products in 179 countries. It is the world's largest supplier of insulin for the treatment of diabetes and the inventor of various pen delivery systems that make insulin injection accurate, convenient and painless.

For more information, call Novo Nordisk Pharmaceuticals (Phils.) Inc. at 632-9905.