Maximizing treatment benefits in type 2 diabetes by affordable oral anti diabetes agents in India

Diabetes mellitus (DM) is a global epidemic with number of cases rising exponentially with each decade. What makes it more concerning is its association with numerous complications like cardiovascular diseases, end-stage renal disease, neuropathy, and retinopathy. In India, the management of this disease mainly involves out‑of‑pocket expense and contributes to catastrophic health expenditure and distress financing. Thus, the need of the hour is to make oral anti diabetes agents (OADs) affordable and accessible so that maximum number of patients can avail treatment benefits in diabetes care. This review article focuses on the currently available low cost OADs such as sulfonylureas, metformin, thiazolidinediones, alpha glucosidase inhibitors, dipeptidyl-peptidase 4 (DPP4) inhibitors and sodium-glucose co-transporter-2 (SGLT2) inhibitors explaining their efficacy and safety from recent clinical evidence and those going off patent and becoming much affordable in their generic form. This information will help family physicians make rational choices for their type 2 DM (T2DM) patients.