“A great majority of patients who are seen in the primary care setting usually don’t have advanced diabetes and, in that case, if someone does not have an increased risk for hypoglycemia, which is the concern that the ACP has, they should be kept at the tightest possible control so that when they are much older they have a legacy effect of good control of their disease,” said Dr. Aleppo.** “Also, if you place someone on modern, lower-risk medications that are so much safer today than before, these actually have been shown not only to improve glucose level in high-risk patients, they can actually cause a very big improvement in cardiovascular disease outcomes.”
Sodium-glucose cotransporter 2 inhibitors and glucagonlike peptide-1 receptor agonists are both newer medications with signs of high success, according to Dr. Aleppo.*
At press time the American College of Physicians was unable to provide a statement.
ezimmerman@frontlinemedcom.com
Corrections, 3/12/18: *An earlier version of this article misstated one of the drug classes mentioned.
**An earlier version of this article misstated a reference to the patient group specified.