Which medicine to treat type 2 diabetes is best for you? Elizabeth Tracey reports

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There are a wide range of choices when it comes to medicines to manage diabetes. Rita Kalyani, a diabetes expert and author of a recent review paper in the New England Journal of Medicine, says if you have additional health conditions such as heart or kidney disease, there are medicines that may help both.

Kalyani: Over the past three to four years, cardiovascular outcome trials have actually shown superiority of some agents in their cardiovascular benefits. Also renal benefits of these glucose lowering drugs. In the SGL2 inhibitor class and the GLP1 receptor agonist class we now have multiple agents that are not only approved for their glucose lowering mechanism but also for their benefit in reducing recurrent heart attacks, stroke, or reducing mortality, or also for reducing the progression of chronic kidney disease.  :33

Kalyani says talk with your provider, and make sure to revisit this issue periodically to see if there’s a better drug for you. At Johns Hopkins, I’m Elizabeth Tracey.