According to Dr. Steven Smith, Scientific Director of the Translational Research Institute at Florida Hospital, weight is the genesis of many cases of Type 2 diabetes. The increase in diabetes has been largely due to the increasing obesity epidemic in the United States and across the world.
In the past 5 or 10 years, diabetes drug development has seen an increasing emphasis on the ability to not only control glycemia, but also help reduce body weight. We now have new approved obesity drugs in the United States that have been released and are on the market. In studies of these medications, patients with diabetes showed “very nice improvements in glycemia, but also improvements in other cardiometabolic risk factors such as: cholesterol, improvements in insulin sensitivity, and reductions in many other cardiovascular risk factors.” Physical activity can help increase the effectiveness of diabetes drugs through improving insulin sensitivity and reducing insulin use. Just a 5% – 10% change in body weight can reduce the number of diabetes medications that a patient has to take, while at the same time, improving cardiometabolic risk factors.
Going forward, there will be much more emphasis on weight management in patients with Type 2 diabetes to supplement the medications that doctors already know of and use in clinical practice. Dr. Steven Smith say they will also be “setting a new paradigm for how we think about treating type 2 diabetes.”