Washington: A new study proposes a novel strategy to treat type 2 diabetes, putting individuals in command of their own medicine. The Trimaster study is the first to allow persons with type 2 diabetes to choose their own medicine following a series of three different drugs. It came to the conclusion that the technique could be a new means of choosing the best treatment.
Researchers at the University of Exeter led the Medical Research Council-funded study, which gave people with type 2 diabetes three commonly-prescribed drugs, each for a 16-week period in turn. During the study, researchers monitored the effect of each drug on the 448 patients' glucose levels, weight and recorded the side effects. At the end of the study, now published in Nature Medicine, patients got to choose the drug that worked best for them. Their chosen drug not only lowered glucose most effectively, but also resulted in fewer side effects.
