Hypoglycemic side effects of sulfonylureas and repaglinide in ageing patients - knowledge and self-management.

Hypoglycemic side effects of sulfonylureas and repaglinide in ageing patients - knowledge and self-management. J Physiol Pharmacol. 2018 Aug;69(4): Authors: Harsch IA, Kaestner RH, Konturek PC Abstract Insulinotropic oral antidiabetics (OAD) such as sulfonylureas and (SU) glinides are among the frequently prescribed OAD. Side effects are the potential to induce hypoglycemias and weight gain. The aim was to assess the self-managing skills in case of a hypoglycemic event in an elderly type 2 diabetic patient population. In a 2-year period, 160 hospitalized patients (mean age 77.4 years) under insulinotrophic OAD were interviewed using a standardized questionnaire. Additionally, possible dementia was evaluated by using the Mini-Mental State Examination (MMSE) and the Clock-Drawing Test (CDT). The mean HbA1c was 7.6%. MMSE and CDT did intraindividually correlate well and 23.8% of the patients had moderate dementia (10 - 20 points MMSE), 13.1% had severe dementia (0 - 10 points MMSE) at the time of the survey. When under treatment with a sulfonylurea, only 16.0% of patients were aware of the potential hypoglycemia-inducing side effect. Moreover, only 11.8% of patients treated with a combination of a sulfonylurea and insulin knew this side effect of the OAD. The awareness of the side effects of repaglinide was 21.6% (without insulin therapy) versus 21.4% in the insulin-comedicated group. Only 42.6% of patients treated with sulfonylureas or...
Source: Journal of Physiology and Pharmacology - Category: Drugs & Pharmacology Tags: J Physiol Pharmacol Source Type: research