Liraglutide – A new hope for type 2 diabetics

US, September 27: A daily jab of Liraglutide, a new diabetes drug similar to Byetta, may not only help people with early type 2 diabetesdefine in lowering their blood sugar levels, but also helps them in shedding a few kilos, results of a new study suggest.

Rooting to the ‘incretin mimetics’ class of medications, the drug, liraglutide, is a laboratory-made version of glucagon-like peptide-1 (GLP-1), a hormone produced by the body. The GLP-1 hormone stimulates insulindefine secretion and expands insulin-making beta cells in the pancreasdefine.

To understand the effect of liraglutide on patients with early type 2 diabetesdefine, the researchers from the Baylor College of Medicine compared the efficacy of liraglutide with Amaryl, a signature drug know to stimulate insulin secretion.

For the Phase 3 trail of the drug, the researchers enrolled 746 patients, all early type 2 diabetics.

For a year, study participants received a once-daily 1.2 mg or 1.8 mg doses of liraglutide by a once-daily injection or a once-daily tablet of Amaryl.

First year analyses revealed that patients on liraglutide had benefited more against type 2 diabetes than those on Amaryl.

The patients' HbA1c scores -- a measure of long-term blood-sugar control – dropped 1.14 percent among those in the 1.8 mg dose group; dropped 0.84 percent in participants receiving 1.2 mg doses of liraglutide; and dropped 0.51 percent in those on Amaryl.

HbA1c level of less than 7.0 percent is recommended by the American Diabetes Association. 51 percent on 1.8 mg dose of liraglutide and 43 percent in the 1.2 mg group managed to achieve the target. However, only 28 percent of the Amaryl patients attained the ADA recommended HbA1c level.

Ironically, patients who experienced more nausea were likely to lose more weight. During the study period, patients who experienced nausea for more than a week lost on an average 7.1 pounds on a 1.2 mg dose of liraglutide and 7.5 pounds on 1.8 mg dose of liraglutide. On Amaryl the weight loss was 3.15 pounds.

Conversely, for patients who complained of no nausea, or nausea for less than seven days lost 4.1 pounds on the 1.2 mg dose of liraglutide and 5 pounds on the 1.8 mg dose of liraglutide. The patients on Amaryl, however, gained 2.7 pounds during the same period.

Liraglutide also reduced patients' blood pressure more than Amaryl did, researchers noted.

"We conclude that liraglutide is safe and effective as initial pharmacological therapy for type 2 diabetes mellitus and has advantages over other drugs used in immunotherapy, such as greater reductions in weight, the blood sugar levels and systolic blood pressuredefine" averred Alan Garber, study’s lead author and researcher at the Baylor College of Medicine.

The drug now awaits an FDA (Food and Drug Administration) approval. If approved, Liraglutide would be the second GLP-1diabetes medicine on the U.S. market after Amylin and Elililly’s Byetta which was approved in 2005.

The findings appear in the September 25 online edition of The Lancet.