Exploring research into diabetes

Community nurses probably don’t need reminding just how rife type 2 diabetes (T2D) is in the UK. Indeed, Public Health England recently estimated that about 9% of adults in England – some 3.8 million people aged over 16 years – had diabetes in 2015.

Approximately 90% of these had T2D. A quick flick through the British National Formulary reveals a plethora of drugs for T2D from insulin analogues to metformin to a more recently introduced class that blocks the sodium glucose co-transporter 2 (SGLT-2). Most classes have several members that differ in, for example, pharmacokinetics (the way the body handles drugs), allowing prescribers to tailor treatment to each patient. Yet T2D patients continue to experience complications and die prematurely. For example, Diabetes UK estimated that there are 7370 diabetes-related amputations in England a year.