Diabetes Blood Sugar

Drug reduces blood sugar by passing in urine

New diabetes drugs are being developed that reduce blood sugar in a straightforward way — by causing it to be excreted in the urine.

A Food and Drug Administration panel voted 9-6 on Tuesday against approval for the experimental diabetes pill from Bristol-Myers Squibb and AstraZeneca, while expressing hope that the drug might ultimately be approved if safety questions are resolved. The vote is only a recommendation for FDA, which will make a final decision on the drug before the end of October.

Dapagliflozin is a once-a-day pill designed to help diabetics eliminate excess sugar in their urine. That differs from older drugs that decrease the amount of sugar absorbed from food and stored in the liver. The companies have touted it as the first in a new class of drugs to address the nation's growing diabetes epidemic, which affects more than 25 million people.

Nearly all the panelists praised the drug's innovative approach to lowering blood glucose, but a majority said they wanted more information on a host of safety concerns, including cancer, infections and possible liver toxicity. "It was the closest of calls, I changed my mind about four times in the last 10 seconds," said Dr. Erica Brittain, a biostatistician with the National Institutes of Health, who voted against the drug. "The level of evidence about the cancer is fairly weak, but it's just that the uncertainty is still there."

Bristol-Myers Squibb and AstraZeneca, the co-developers of dapagliflozin, are in the lead to bring these drugs, SGLT2 inhibitors, to market. Others developing such drugs include Johnson & Johnson; the team of Eli Lilly and Boehringer Ingelheim; Lexicon Pharmaceuticals; Isis Pharmaceuticals; and several Japanese companies including Astellas Pharma, Chugai Pharmaceutical Co. and Taisho Pharmaceutical Co.

Currently, only a tiny amount of glucose that is filtered by the kidneys is excreted in the urine; the rest is returned to the bloodstream. This mechanism apparently evolved to help the body preserve a vital source of energy.

The job of returning glucose to the bloodstream is performed mainly by a protein called the sodium glucose co-transporter 2. By inhibiting SGLT2, the drugs cause a substantial increase in the amount of glucose that flows out in the urine.

At least in principle, this does not appear to be dangerous. There is a rare genetic disease in which people do not have functioning SGLT2. They have very high sugar levels in their urine but appear otherwise to be generally healthy.

If a person is Diabetic and thier blood sugar is extremely high ...

The Breathalyzer will not show positive in a diabetic however high their sugar is,and even if they are keto-acidotic. I bow to Rhianna’s superior knowledge,I did not know that it was possible to obtain a misleading result with older devices.

The Breathalyzer determines breath alcohol levels which can be extrapolated to give approximate blood alcohol levels. It does not measure how much alcohol a person has consumed as alcohol is metabolised at different rates depending on many factors including gender and fat percentage. Intoxication level is an imprecise term,again each person reacts differently even to the same blood alcohol level.

not unless they’ve been drinking lots of alcopops, as these make your blood sugar high and have an alcohol content !!

a breathalyzer as you call it is to measure alcohol, a diabetic person could be mistake for being drunk if there were hypo, this is low blood sugar not high. hypo’s also happen after alcohol, usually in the middle of the night if you don’t have something to eat before going to sleep.

No, not anymore or at least not with the breathalysers we use here in the UK. The older breathalyzers used to detect acetone which is a by-product of hypoglycemia, produced when a diabetic enters a state called ketoacidosis, acetones can be detected in the breath, which could in theory, register as high alcohol levels on a breath tester. The newer machines however, use technology that filters out substances like acetone.

Edit: public metro bus driver was yanked from driving because his blood sugar went low and he started driving weird .. when he pulled over.. the cops didn’t come to the conclusion he was sick they just arrested him for being under the influence. It wasn’t until he was tested for substances that the arresting officers came to the conclusion the driver was not full of drugs.. but had other health concerns. It is extremely important to monitor your glucose level if you are a diabetic or have pre-diabetes symptoms. Here is a guide that will help you measure the proper levels:

Upon waking up (and before breakfast), your levels should be between 80 and 120. This is considered to be a healthy range.

Before meals your levels should also be between 80 and 120.

Two hours after you eat meals, your levels should be 170 or less.

Before lunch, it should drop back down to 80-120.

Before you go to bed, it is ideal to be between 100 and 140.

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