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Diabetes

Incretin mimetics and insulin — closing the gap to normoglycaemia

Treatment of type 2 diabetes mellitus with GLP1 receptor agonists can result in long-term glycaemic control or can fail over time, in which case insulin can be used as an alternative or as an additive treatment. New research shows that the latter is more likely to achieve glycaemic targets than the former.

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Figure 1: Glycaemic target achievement resulting from different treatment approaches.

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Correspondence to Michael A. Nauck or Juris J. Meier.

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M.A.N. declares that he has received personal fees, grants, non-financial support or other support from AstraZeneca, Berlin Chemie-AG, Boehringer Ingelheim, Eli Lilly, GlaxoSmithKline, Hoffmann La Roche, Intarcia Therapeuticals, Janssen Global Services, Medscape LLC, Merck Sharp & Dohme, Novartis, Novo Nordisk, Sanofi-Aventis and Versartis. J.J.M. declares that he has received grants or personal fees from Astra Zeneca, Berlin-Chemie, Boehringer-Ingelheim, Eli Lilly, MSD, NovoNordisk, Sanofi and Servier.

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Nauck, M., Meier, J. Incretin mimetics and insulin — closing the gap to normoglycaemia. Nat Rev Endocrinol 12, 689–690 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1038/nrendo.2016.180

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