Ni Siddiqui

South Asian Consensus Guideline: Use of insulin in diabetes during Ramadan

A person with diabetes mellitus (DM) has every right to perform the ritual of fasting during Ramadan. In daily practice we come across both type 1 and type 2 DM who wish to fast. This Consensus Statement describes the pre-Ramadan assessment, planning, prescription, management, and monitoring of patients on insulin, who wish to fast.

South Asian Consensus Guideline: Use of GLP-1 analogue therapy in diabetes during Ramadan.

Ramadan is a lunar based month, during which Muslims across the world observe the ritual fast. This provides a challenge not only to the diabetic patient who wishes to observe the fast but also to the health care professional managing his diabetes. The challenge is to use therapies which are effective in maintaining good glycemic control and at the same time have a low propensity to cause hypoglycemia during the several hours of no calorie intake. The GLP-1 analogues are unique agents which are effective in providing glycemic reduction with a very low risk of hypoglycemia and hence find an important place in the management of diabetes during Ramadan. This Consensus Statement describes the pre-Ramadan assessment, planning, prescription and management and monitoring of patients who are on GLP-1 analogues, with or without other antidiabetic therapies.

Insulin analogues: new dimension of management of diabetes mellitus.

Insulin is one of the fundamental tools for the management of diabetes mellitus. All type 1 diabetic patients and most of the type 2 require the appropriate support of insulin for good glycemic control, long term healthy outcome and also to overcome the acute crisis. It is almost impossible to mimic the endogenous physiological insulin secretion curve by external administration of short acting human insulin and conventional intermediate acting insulin, neutral protamin Hagedorn (NPH), the so called basal insulin. Short acting human insulin has got a delayed onset of action, late peak and a long tail leading to postprandial hyperglycemia and late hypoglycemia. The so called basal insulin (NPH) is not truly a basal or peakless insulin. Its onset of action takes about 2 - 4 hours with a peak action and a tail. It can not maintain a constant basal level leading to premeal and fasting hyperglycemia and chance of hypoglycemia during peak action, particularly after night injection. To overcome the limitations of human insulin, during the last decade, three ultrashort acting and two long acting basal analogues have been developed by modifications of primary molecule of human insulin. The ultrashort acting analogue insulins are insulin lispro, insulin aspart and insulin glulisine. The basal analogues are insulin glargin and insulin detemir. The pharmacokinetic profiles of novel analogue molecules provide a better opportunity to mimic a physiological pattern of insulin administration, better glycemic control, less chance of hypoglycemia, greater flexibility and a healthy longterm outcome.