New drug to tackle type 2 diabetes

Sydney researchers have helped develop a new drug to tackle Type 2 diabetes.

The drug helps the body better deal with blood sugar levels, and it is hoped it will prevent the worst effects of the disease.

Danielle Schwerin, 32, has Type 2 diabetes. For her lunch comes with a routine that is now familiar to a growing number of Australians; checking blood sugar levels.

Diagnosed two years ago, Ms Schwerin is the only person with diabetes under the age of 40 in her family, indicative of the trend towards younger and younger diagnosis.

She suffers from the disease despite being raised on a healthy diet.

Feeling light-headed or tired can be a warning. It is essential she keeps control of her condition through exercise and diet and to take action now to prevent things getting worse.

Ms Schwerin said: “When I go out to a restaurant I have to think about what is going to be on that plate and how that adds up to my daily count.”

Professor Greg Fulcher, endocrinologist and biabetologist ay Sydney’s Royal North Shore Hospital, said: “It's the worlds commonest cause of blindness. It's the world commonest cause of kidney disease. A majority of patients will die of heart disease or a stroke

Doctors hope new drug Invokana can delay the disease’s most devastating effects.

“It's a brand new way of tackling the high blood glucose of patients with diabetes,” added Professor Fulcher.

In the kidneys there is a protein responsible for glucose being put back into the bloodstream. The drug Invokana blocks the protein so instead the glucose goes out of the body through urine.

For those afraid of needles it is good news – it means lowering blood sugar without insulin injections.

Invokana will be on the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme from Sunday.

Around 1.5 million Australians are living with diabetes and that number is expected to double in just over ten years - with warnings it will not be long until diabetes is this country's number one cause of death and illness.

MORE INFORMATION

- An estimated 3.5 million of us will have the disease by 2033.
- This will be one of the first new diabetes treatments in the last four years to be made widely available on the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme (PBS).*
- Nearly half of the 1.3 million Australians estimated to have type 2 diabetes are not achieving adequate blood sugar control, putting them at risk of serious complications including heart disease, kidney disease and blindness.