To help you understand your diabetes treatment we examine SGLT-2 inihibitors. Explaining the benefits and contraindications.
Hello and welcome back to diabetes diet guy i’m mark a diabetes specialist dietitian and today we’re continuing our medication series looking at sodium glucose co-transporters two inhibitors otherwise known as sglt2 inhibitors as with all our videos and blogs on this topic this is not to be used as recommendations to take or not take your medications it’s purely
Information about how they work so then you can apply it to the context of your own diabetes what are sglt2 inhibitors to understand what sglt2 inhibitors do we need to understand what’s actually happening in the body for their mechanism to take its action in your kidneys you have sglt2 receptors and these receptors job is to reabsorb glucose through the kidney
Rather than passing it out as urine normally this causes absolutely no problem but with diabetes glucose levels can be running high and thus too much glucose is reabsorbed or the glucose that is reabsorbed is then added on to an already high glucose level in the blood the way sglt2 inhibitors work then is they inhibit the sglt2 receptor and thus not as much
Glucose is reabsorbed into the body and instead it is urinated out sglt2 inhibitors are mostly used in type 2 diabetes although they can be used in type 1 also this class of medication is usually called the glyphlosins so examples include dapogloflozin mpoglyflozin canogloflozin and ertugliflozin benefits of using sglt2 inhibitors sglt2 inhibitors are quite
Effective at lowering glucose levels in the body you can expect a drop in your hba1c anywhere between 0.5 and 1 in the old money which equates to around 6.5 to 11 millimoles per mole in the new reference ranges one unexpected finding with sgl t2 inhibitor therapy was the cardiovascular benefits in fact sglt2 inhibitors are becoming more commonplace in actually
Treating cardiovascular disease with diabetes almost becoming a secondary consideration in some patients the reason they’re so effective with cardiovascular issues is currently unclear however one reason might be the stl t2s make you urinate and thus actually lower the amount of water and thus blood circulating in your body and therefore you reduce your blood
Pressure because the heart and cardiovascular system has less water to pump around your body which places less stress on those organs another terrific benefit of sglt2 inhibitors is weight loss considering these are mainly used in type 2 diabetes where around 80 to 90 percent of sufferers are overweight or obese weight loss is a key consideration when choosing
Medications the reason they are so effective at helping people lose weight is because all that glucose that was previously reabsorbed that is now being urinated out also contains calories so you’re not absorbing as many calories as you previously would have and therefore it has a weight loss inducing effect finally one other key benefit that we’re starting to
Notice with sglt2 inhibitors is that they have a beneficial effect on the progression of renal disease therefore we can see that this medication class is quite a robust option when it comes to type 2 diabetes negatives and side effects the most common side effect or downside to taking sglt2 therapy is the increased incidence of fresh and urinary tract infections
This is because bacteria like sugar and keep in mind glucose is sugar so as more glucose passes through your urinary tract system bacteria will start to accumulate and can cause some of these bacterial infections also because you’re urinating more the risk of dehydration has increased with this class of medication therefore making sure you drink lots of fluids
And regularly is important sglt2 inhibitors can also increase the risk of going into diabetic ketoacidosis this is mainly due to the dehydrating effect of the medications and therefore if you’re ever feeling sick or unwell and you’re particularly off your food and drink it’s recommended that you stop taking the medication until you’re back on your feet when not
To use sglt2 inhibitors caution will be practiced by the medical team if you suffer with any kidney or renal problems also if you suffer any vascular disease like foot disease then sglt2 inhibitors will likely be stopped if you were already taking them of course if you’re underweight then this may not be the medication for you because it does have that weight
Loss inducing effect and finally as mentioned particularly at the time of filming as we are in the covid19 pandemic if you’re feeling unwell sick off your food then you should suspend the medication for a time period until you’re back on your feet and feeling much better and that is it everyone so that is sglt2 inhibitors so hopefully you have a better idea of
How they work now and place that into the context of your diabetes control if you need more information about managing diabetes or living healthily visit the blog at diabetesdirectguy.com there is a bunch of free information for users to scroll through and have a look at and hopefully we can find something that will help you if you do need a further helping hand
We offer consultancy services on a one-to-one basis and also programs which show you step-by-step how to manage your diabetes lose weight and live healthier lives for the long term so for now we’ll leave it there and we’ll see you at the next video
Transcribed from video
SGLT-2 Inhibitors – Dapagliflozin, Empagliflozin, Canagliflozin & Ertugliflozin By Diabetes Diet Guy
