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VIDEO: SGLT2 inhibitors function as ‘diuretic for glucose’
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NEW ORLEANS — In this video exclusive, Anne L. Peters, MD, of the Keck School of Medicine of the University of Southern California in Los Angeles, discusses benefits and risks associated with the newest class of available oral diabetes drugs on the market: sodium-glucose cotransporter 2 inhibitors. These agents are a “diuretic for glucose,” said Peters, that lower blood glucose and blood pressure levels, reduce cardiovascular risk, improve renal function and help patients lose weight.
One drawback of this drug class is that, very rarely, patients with type 2 diabetes can develop diabetic ketoacidosis, even at normal blood glucose levels, Peters said. These cases almost always occur when the patient is under extreme stress, she said.
“I’m not at all worried about using these drugs in [patients with type 2 diabetes],” Peters said. “The risk for DKA is something people need to be aware of so they pick it up if a patient develops a metabolic acidosis that they can’t explain otherwise.”