Diabetes Medications

What is diabetes?

Diabetes mellitus (Diabetes) is a chronic medical condition that occurs when the body cannot properly regulate its blood sugar. 537 million adults in the world live with diabetes now and 4.9 millions of those cases are in the UK.

In diabetes, a key issue arises with the production and responsiveness to a hormone known as Insulin. Insulin is a hormone produced by the pancreas which stimulates fat, liver and muscle cells to take up and use glucose in the bloodstream. This lowers blood glucose levels and regulates glucose metabolism

Diabetes mellitus has two major subsets:

• Type 1 diabetes: characterised by a deficiency of Insulin due to the body’s own immune system attacking the Insulin producing cells of the pancreas

• Type 2 diabetes: characterised by insulin resistance due to persistently raised blood sugar levels which caused raised insulin levels and led to insulin unresponsiveness from liver, fat and muscle cells.

There are other subsets of diabetes such as gestational diabetes, prediabetes or maturity onset diabetes of the young (MODY) that don’t exactly fit into the type 1 or type 2 category.

Due to being a major health concerns, there are multiple medications options to manage diabetes, including insulin and oral diabetes medications.

Check out our catalogue of diabetic medications at our website for Meds For Less.

Diabetes Mellitus is a chronic medical condition that occurs when the body cannot properly regulate blood sugar. Blood sugar (glucose) is necessary to provide energy for proper body and cellular function.

Diabetes is caused by problems with insulin (a hormone made by the pancreas to make the body respond to blood sugar). There are two main types of diabetes:

Type 1 Diabetes: A condition caused when insulin producing cells in the pancreas (beta cells) are destroyed causing insufficient insulin in the body to regulate blood glucose.

Type 2 Diabetes: A condition that occurs when the body’s cells don’t respond to insulin as they are desensitised due to the excess production, because of chronically raised blood glucose levels.

There are some other types of diabetes such as gestational diabetes (which occurs in pregnancy) or diabetes insipidus, a condition caused by problems with regulating urine concentrations of the body.

Diabetes insipidus does not arise due to a problem with regulating blood glucose levels, and gestational diabetes is transient diabetes that arises and lasts during pregnancy.

Causes of diabetes

There are different types of diabetes, and each different type has different causes:

Type 1 Diabetes is caused by an auto-immune condition attacking the pancreas and destroying the cells which produce insulin. These leads to state where there is insufficient insulin in the body to allow for proper glucose metabolism.

Type 2 Diabetes is caused due to persistently raised blood glucose which causes persistently raised insulin production which desensitises the body’s cells and leads to insulin resistance. This leads to impaired glucose metabolism and eventually causes the pancreas to exhaust itself due to excess demand and causes a final stage of insulin deficiency.

Gestational diabetes: A type of diabetes that arises during pregnancy and typically disappears after the baby is born. It is also caused by a decrease in the body’s responsiveness to insulin.

Types of diabetes

There are different types of diabetes:

Diabetes mellitus is a condition characterised by a body’s inability to properly metabolise blood sugar. Diabetes mellitus is divided into type 1 and type 2 diabetes mellitus.

• Type 1 Diabetes Mellitus is a condition that arises when the body’s immune system attacks the pancreas and destroys the cells that produce insulin. This leads to an insulin deficiency and causes impaired glucose metabolism causing raised blood glucose levels.
• Type 2 diabetes mellitus is a condition that arises when the body becomes resistant to the effects of insulin, a hormone produced by the pancreas for glucose metabolism. This causes raised blood sugar levels.

Gestational diabetes is another subset of diabetes that has a distinct separate class cation from type 1 or type 2 diabetes mellitus. It is a condition that arises in some pregnant women due to increased insulin resistance and lack of compensatory mechanisms by the body.

This type of diabetes typically lasts for the period of pregnancy and disappears after the child is born, however it dose predispose the women to develop type 2 diabetes in the future and have occurrence of gestational diabetes in future pregnancies.

Prediabetes is a condition where blood sugars are raised, but not raised enough to indicate type 2 diabetes, it indicates a high risk of developing type 2 diabetes and other serious issues such as a heart attack or stroke.

Diabetes treatment medications

There are different classes of medication that can be used to treat and manage diabetes, these depend on the severity of the condition and the type of diabetes being treated.

Type 1 Diabetes Medications:

Due to the condition being characterised by insulin defiency, the route of management is by insulin therapy administered through injections. The different types of insulin therapy are:

Rapid acting insulin: Works in minutes and is taken before meals to control spikes in blood sugar. Examples of these include

• Insulin lispro (Humalog)
• Insulin aspart (Novolog)
• Insulin Gluisine (Apidra)

Short acting insulin: Takes half an hour and is also used before meals. Examples include:

• Regular insulin (Humilin R and Novolin R)

Intermediate acting insulin: Works on blood sugar for atleast half a day or overnight. Examples include:

• NPH insulin (Humulin N , Novolin N)

Long acting insulin: Works by providing steady blood sugar level for the whole day. Examples include:

• Insulin glargine (Lantus),
• Insulin detemir (Levemir),
• Insulin,
• Degludec (Tresiba)

There are also examples of premixed insulin solutions such as Humulin 70/30 or Novolog 70/30 which are a combination of short acting/long acting insulin.

Please take your insulin as your healthcare provider prescribes, they may educate you on how to adjust your prescribed dose of insulin depending on your blood sugar levels at a particular time of day.

Type 2 Diabetes Medications

Medications for type 2 diabetes are focused on improving the body’s utilisation of insulin, increasing insulin levels and decreasing blood glucose. Medications for type 2 diabetes include both oral and injectable types:

Types of Diabetes mellitus oral medication:

• Biguanides such as Metformin decrease glucose production by the liver and increase insulin sensitivity of muscle, allowing them to take up more glucose.
• Sulfonylureas such as Glipizide (Glucotrol) and Glyburide (Diabeta) work by stimulating the pancreas to release more insulin
• A class of medications known as DPP-4 inhibitors works by increasing the levels of insulin released after a meal and decreasing glucose production by the liver. Examples of these medications include Sitagliptin (Januvia), Saxagliptin (Onglyza) and Linagliptin (Tradjenta).
• SGLT-2 inhibitors such as Canagliflozin (Invokana) and Dapigliflozin (Forxiga) work by increasing the amount of glucose excreted in urine by kidneys, these decreases circulating blood glucose.
• GLP-1 mimetics such as Liraglutide (Victoza or Saxenda ), Semaglutide (ozempic or wegovy) work by stimulating insulin release, suppressing apetite and slowing the movement of food through your gut.

Diabetes Injections medications:

Some patients with type 2 diabetes may need GLP-1 mimetics to help control their diabetes. Examples of injectable GLP-1 mimetics for Diabetes include Semaglutide (e.g. Ozempic or Wegovy) or Liraglutide (e.g. Saxenda.)

The types of insulin used in type 2 diabetes are the same as those in type 1 including rapid acting, long acting and premixed insulin

You can now see the full list of diabetes medication we offer at Meds for Less such as Metformin, Canagoflozin and Sitagliptin online.

Some of these medications can also be used as prediabetes medication or gestational diabetes medication. Please speak to your healthcare provider about which medication would appropriate for use in which type of diabetic condition.

How can I see the cost of diabetes medication?

You can see our full catalogue of diabetic medications online at our Website for Meds For Less.

While browsing the catalogue, you may find the specifics of the different types of medication and their methods of use for each product.

You can also easily and conveniently find the cost of diabetes medication for each drug on their respective product page.