Dr. David Lieb
Session moderator Dr. David Lieb, associate professor of medicine at Eastern Virginia Medical School in Norfolk, said that liraglutide may be a good option for type 1 diabetes patients who are obese and want to lose weight. “I think if there is a drug that can potentially help with glucose control, because liraglutide is not all about causing insulin secretion by the pancreas – it also affects glucagon levels, and it affects appetite and satiety – [so] it may also help with weight loss. I think there’s a role for those sorts of medications in type 1 diabetics on a case-by-case, individual basis,” he said.
However, he wondered if there are any negative effects of suppressing glucagon because patients with type 1 diabetes may be at increased risk for hypoglycemia because of their insulin use, their activities, and their sensitivity to insulin. “Glucagon … allows glucose to be released by the liver,” he said, so (hypothetically) suppressing glucose release may exacerbate hypoglycemia. He said he looks forward to further studies of these drugs for type 1 diabetes and seeing the rate of occurrence of hypoglycemic episodes and how patients respond to them.
There was no funding for the study. Dr. Ghanim and Dr. Lieb reported having no financial disclosures.