Change as a Constant
- Tom Elasy, MD, MPH, Editor-in-Chief
Part of the widespread interest in the care of individuals with diabetes surrounds the unprecedented changes that have occurred in the field. These changes have attracted the attention and efforts of investigators, businesses, and clinicians. Over the past dozen years, these changes have spanned the fields of pharmacotherapy, approaches to care, and supplies used to support care. This issue of Clinical Diabetes highlights some of those changes.
John R. White, Jr., PA, PharmD, summarizes a new class of medications aimed at raising endogenous levels of incretins—a class of hormones that is just being introduced in medical school curriculums (p. 53). Although we've known for decades about the differential insulin response to oral versus intravenous glucose, there was little appreciation that a class of gut hormones (incretins) was, in part, mediating the increased insulin response to oral glucose. During the past decade, the hormones, receptors, and enzymes responsible for regulating the hormone levels have been identified. Moreover, two products have come to market that leverage our understanding of this system. …
