Beyond Insulin: Diabetes Meds and What They Do
Sorry to say, there is no single magic pill that can treat diabetes. However, there are many different types of drugs that can work with the other parts of your diabetes management plan to keep your blood sugar at healthy levels. Sometimes, one drug is enough. But if one medication alone doesn’t do the trick, your doctor may prescribe a combination of diabetes pills or injectables, or these drugs plus insulin.
Now that newer diabetes medications are injected under the skin, it can be confusing to know whether a drug is insulin or not. We’ve listed some of them below, along with each one’s tier in the 2020 SCAN Formulary.
|
Drug Category |
Brand Name |
Tier |
Type/ What They Do |
|
GLP-1 Agonists |
Bydureon Byetta Victoza Ozempic Trulicity |
3 3 3 3 4 |
Non-insulin injection/ Stimulate the pancreas to produce more insulin after meals and reduce appetite |
|
SGLT2 Inhibitors
|
Invokana Farxiga |
3 3 |
Tablet/ Prevent glucose from being absorbed in the kidneys—so, there’s less glucose in the blood |
|
SGLT2 Inhibitors and Metformin |
Invokamet (regular and XR) Xigduo XR |
3
3 |
|
|
DPP-4 Inhibitors |
Januvia Onglyza |
3 3 |
Tablet/ Increase the effect of hormones that help reduce blood glucose levels, without causing hypoglycemia or negatively affecting cholesterol levels |
|
DPP-4 Inhibitors and Metformin |
Janumet (regular and XR) Kombiglyze XR |
3
3 |
|
|
Amylin Analogues |
SymlinPen |
5 |
Non-insulin injection/ Work with insulin to control blood sugar |
Depending on your health issues, your doctor may also prescribe a medication used to treat conditions other than diabetes. For example, colesevelam is a cholesterol-lowering medication that also reduces blood sugar levels and can be safer for people who may not be able to use other diabetes medications because of liver problems.