Background: Type 2 diabetes mellitus, is a disease with a rising prevalence worldwide. It is currently estimated that 190 million people around the world suffer from diabetes mellitus, with over 330 million predicted to have the condition by 2025 and 366 million by the year 2030. It is predicted that the developing countries will contribute 77.6% of the total number of diabetic patients in the world by the year 2030. This rapidly growing prevalence among developing countries is attributed to the effects of urbanization, industrialization and globalization on these countries. There has been substantial progress over the last decade in the development of new agents for the treatment of type 2 diabetes especially focusing on the underlying pathophysiology. Despite this and the numerous guidelines from diabetes organisations only less than 40% of patients achieve recommended glycaemic targets. We therefore decided to do a review of the pharmacological treatment of type 2 diabetes mellitus to highlight the pharmacology and effectiveness of these agents and their roles in the management of type 2 diabetes.
Methods: We reviewed the literature on the subject using materials from library search, articles in journals, internet search and conference abstracts.
Results: The global burden of type 2 diabetes mellitus, the various pharmacological agents available for the treatment of type 2 diabetes mellitus, including novel agents were discussed.
Conclusion: The prevalence of type 2 diabetes mellitus is increasing worldwide and the predicted increase is much higher in developing countries compared to the developed countries. There are obviously an enormous number of therapies available for the treatment of type 2 diabetes mellitus and if effectively deployed it will be possible to achieve target diabetic control in most of our patients. This however, should not detract us from adopting measures that will reduce the prevalence of type 2 diabetes mellitus in our population bearing in mind that prevention is more cost effective especially given our low socioeconomic development and the very high predicted rise in the burden of type 2 diabetes mellitus in our developing world.