title: After 10 Years of Clinical Trials with Liraglutide in Diabetes, What do we Know About its Effects on Clinical Cardiovascular Outcomes?
abstract: Type 2 diabetes remains an escalating world-wide problem, despite a range of treatments. The revelation that insulin secretion is under the control of a gut hormone, glucagon-like peptide 1 (GLP-1), led to a new paradigm in the management of type 2 diabetes. Liraglutide is a long acting GLP-1 receptor agonist used in the treatment of type 2 diabetes. The review considers the clinical trials with liraglutide. There are many comparator trials between liraglutide and other medicines for the treatment of type 2 diabetes, and these trials have shown that liraglutide lowers HbA1c and body weight, and is well tolerated. A large cardiovascular safety trial with liraglutide is presently being undertaken. After 10 years of clinical trials with liraglutide, we do not know whether liraglutide has cardiovascular safety in subjects with type 2 diabetes and high cardiovascular risk. Although this is not a requirement for registration by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), in my opinion, they should reconsider this. We also do not presently know whether liraglutide has any beneficial effects on clinical cardiovascular outcomes.
authors.affiliation: Senior Lecturer in Pharmacology, School of Biomedical Sciences, Gardens Point campus, Faculty of Health, Queensland University of Technology, Brisbane, GPO 2343, QLD 4002, Australia. sheila.doggrell@qut.edu.au.
authors.forename: Sheila A
authors.initials: SA
authors.lastname: Doggrell
mesh_terms: D002318:Cardiovascular Diseases / Q000209:etiology; D002986:Clinical Trials as Topic; D003924:Diabetes Mellitus, Type 2 / Q000150:complications / Q000188:drug therapy*; D006801:Humans; D007004:Hypoglycemic Agents / Q000627:therapeutic use*; D000069450:Liraglutide / Q000627:therapeutic use*
chemical_list: D007004:Hypoglycemic Agents; D000069450:Liraglutide