Advances in Diabetes Pharmacotherapy: An Update for the Emergency Provider

Diabetes mellitus is a disease that affects millions of Americans, and its prevalence is only anticipated to increase in coming years. It is estimated that diabetes-related visits account for 1% of all emergency department (ED) encounters. In recent years, there have been several new categories of medications approved for the treatment of diabetes, including new insulins, glucagon-like peptide-1 receptor agonists, dipeptidyl peptidase-4 inhibitors, an amylin analogue, and sodium-glucose cotransporter-2 inhibitors.

This review presents recently approved agents to treat diabetes, with a focus on basic mechanism, place in therapy, and toxicities the ED provider may encounter.

Many of these new therapies have been incorporated as first- and second-line agents for the management of diabetes. Recently approved diabetes medications often have different mechanisms of action and adverse effect and overdose profiles compared to traditional agents, such as sulfonylureas and metformin.

Emergency providers will encounter patients taking these newly approved medications, as well as treat those presenting with adverse effects and overdoses from them. As such, emergency providers must have a basic understanding of these new therapies so that they can optimally care for diabetic patients.