Actually,

There has been dramatic research in diabetes because diabetes literally affects everybody.

Everybody seems to have diabetes these days!

My whole family has,

Everybody has diabetes in my family,

and it is becoming more and more common.

There are several reasons for that.

But let me be honest with you,

There are at least 15 groups of diabetic medicines

And they all work by different mechanisms.

Some decrease the absorption of sugar in our body,

Some help us to let go off more glucose through our urine and kidney, lose glucose/sugar in kidneys.

Some medicines help us to release more insulin from our body.

Some help us to utilize glucose by our tissue (or sugar by our tissues).

It is not the best medicine, but the three-month test or what we call glycosylated haemoglobin, or HbA1c number which is the gold standard now all over the world where we want to keep that number less than 7.0, (in diabetes) normal is 5.4.

So, if you keep checking HbA1c, you do not have diabetes, you keep checking this number every 6 months or every year, that number will always be constant 5.4, 5.5.

So the most important is, yes we use one medicine.

• Metformin is the gold standard,

• Pretty much everybody gets started with metformin.

• And then this is a medicine approved even before we develop diabetes.

But then, as our diabetes progresses, we can add medications.

Aim is to combine different medications to minimise side effects and maximise the management of the blood sugar keeping the average blood sugar about 100-110. (and HbA1c # <>).