Pharmacological intervention in prediabetes: considering the risks and benefits

Early effective intervention can significantly reduce all-cause mortality in prediabetic patients: a systematic review and meta-analysis based on high-quality clinical studies

Background

Reducing the occurrence of diabetes is considered a primary criterion for evaluating the effectiveness of interventions for prediabetes. There is existing evidence that early lifestyle-based interventions can significantly decrease the incidence of diabetes. However, whether effective interventions can reduce long-term outcomes in patients, including all-cause mortality, cardiovascular risks, and the occurrence of microvascular complications, which are the most concerning issues for both patients and clinicians, remains a subject of inconsistent research findings. And there is no direct evidence to answer whether effective intervention has long-term benefits for prediabetic patients. Therefore, we conducted a systematic review and meta-analysis to assess the relationship between early effective intervention and macrovascular and microvascular complications in prediabetic patients.

Methods

PubMed, Embase, and Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Trials were searched for the randomized controlled trials of lifestyle or/and drugs intervention in prediabetes from inception to 2023.9.15. Two investigators independently reviewed the included studies and extracted relevant data. Random or fixed effects model meta-analysis to derive overall relative risk (RR) with 95% CI for all-cause mortality, cardiovascular events, and microvascular complications.

Results

As of September 15, 2023, a total of 7 effective intervention studies were included, comprising 26 articles out of 25,671 articles. These studies involved 26,389 patients with a total follow-up duration of 178,038.6 person-years. The results indicate that effective intervention can significantly reduce all-cause mortality in prediabetic patients without a history of cardiovascular disease by 17% (RR 0.83, 95% CI 0.70-0.98). Additionally, effective intervention reduced the incidence of retinopathy by 38% (RR 0.62, 95% CI 0.70-0.98). Furthermore, the study results suggest that women and younger individuals have lower all-cause mortality and cardiovascular mortality. Subsequently, we conducted an in-depth analysis of patients without a history of cardiovascular disease. The results revealed that prediabetic patients with a 10-year cardiovascular risk >10% experienced more significant benefits in terms of all-cause mortality (P=0.01). When comparing the results of all-cause mortality and cardiovascular mortality from the Da Qing Diabetes Prevention Outcome Study longitudinally, it was evident that the duration of follow-up is a key factor influencing long-term benefits. In other words, the beneficial effects become more pronounced as the intervention duration reaches a certain threshold.

Conclusion

Early effective intervention, which significantly reduces the incidence of diabetes, can effectively lower all-cause mortality in prediabetic patients without a history of cardiovascular disease (especially those with a 10-year cardiovascular risk >10%), with women and younger individuals benefiting more significantly. Additionally, the duration of follow-up is a key factor influencing outcomes. The conclusions of this study can provide evidence-based guidance for the clinical treatment of prediabetic patients to prevent cardiovascular and microvascular complications.

Systematic review registration

https://www.crd.york.ac.uk/prospero, identifier CRD42020160985.

Prevention of type 2 diabetes mellitus with acupuncture: Protocol for a systematic review and meta-analysis

BACKGROUND

Prediabetes is prevalent and significantly increases lifetime risk of progression to type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM). Acupuncture has been increasingly used for prediabetes in China but its effect is unclear. We aim to assess the efficacy and safety of acupuncture in preventing or delaying incident diabetes among individuals with prediabetes.

METHODS

The following 8 databases will be searched from inception to September 1, 2018: the Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Trials (CENTRAL) on the Cochrane Library, PubMed, Embase, Chinese National Knowledge Infrastructure database, Chinese Biomedical Literature database, Chinese Scientific Journal database, Wan Fang database, and Clinical Trials. The incidence of diabetes and regression toward normoglycemia will be accepted as the primary outcomes. The Cochrane Risk of Bias tool will be used to evaluate the methodologic quality of eligible studies. Meta-analysis will be performed by Review Manager 5.3.

RESULTS

This study will provide a high-quality synthesis of current evidence of acupuncture in the prevention of T2DM from several aspects including the incidence of diabetes, regression toward normoglycemia, fasting plasma glucose, 2-hour plasma glucose level after a 75-g oral glucose tolerance test, glycosylated hemoglobin level, body mass index, and adverse drug events.

CONCLUSIONS

The conclusion of this review will provide evidence to judge whether acupuncture is an effective and safe intervention for prediabetes.

PROSPERO REGISTRATION NUMBER

PROSPERO CRD42018111236.

Five-year effectiveness of short messaging service (SMS) for pre-diabetes

Objective

An observational post-randomized controlled trial (RCT) design was adopted to evaluate the long-term sustainability and maintenance of improved glycemic control, lipid profile, reduced progression to diabetes at 3-year following a 2-year short messaging service (SMS). We performed a naturalistic follow-up to the 104 participants of SMS intervention, a 2-year randomized controlled trial comparing the SMS to non-SMS for pre-diabetes. All participants were arranged screening for diabetes at 5-year assessment. Primary outcome of this post-RCT study was cumulative incidence of diabetes whereas secondary outcomes were the change in biometric data over a 5-year period.

Results

After a mean 57-month follow-up, 19 (18.3%) were lost to follow-up after the RCT period. Progression to diabetes occurred in 20 and 16 patients among the intervention and control group respectively, with no significant between-group difference (8.06 and 7.31 cases per 100 person years, respectively; Hazard Ratio in the intervention group, 1.184; 95% confidence interval, 0.612 to 2.288; p-value = 0.616). No significant effect of SMS on reduction in diabetes was observed in overall and pre-defined subgroups. The SMS intervention preserved the clinical benefits within the trial period but failed to transform from treatment efficacy to long-term effectiveness beyond 2 years after intervention.

Trail registration ClinicalTrials.gov Identifier NCT01556880, retrospectively registered on March 16, 2012

Different intervention strategies for preventing type 2 diabetes mellitus in China: A systematic review and network meta-analysis of randomized controlled trials

Different strategies are increasingly used for early intervention in prediabetes in China, but the effects of these strategies on incident diabetes have not yet been confirmed. The aim of the present study was to assess systematically the effects of different strategies for preventing diabetes, aimed at Chinese people with prediabetes. Seven electronic databases were searched to identify eligible trials published from inception to September 20, 2016. Randomized controlled trials with a minimum follow-up duration of 6 months were included. Standard pairwise meta-analysis with a random-effects model and network meta-analysis with a frequentist framework were performed. A total of 63 studies, including 11 intervention strategies, were included. Compared with placebo, all strategies, except for lipid-affecting drugs and sitagliptin, reduced the rate of incident diabetes with different levels of effectiveness, ranging from 0.18 (95% confidence interval [CI] 0.12, 0.27) to 0.39 (95% CI 0.20, 0.75). Ranking probability analysis indicated that metformin and β-cell-stimulating drugs reduced the risk of diabetes most, with probabilities of 87.4% and 81%, respectively. Ethnicity and cultural factors should be considered for diabetes prevention. Most of the included trials were of poor methodological quality, however, and the results should be interpreted with caution.

Gender-related affecting factors of prediabetes on its 10-year outcome

OBJECTIVE

To investigate the gender-related affecting factors of prediabetes on its 10-year outcome, in a longitudinal study.

METHODS AND RESULTS

This longitudinal population-based study was performed in the Ping Liang community, Yangpu district, Shanghai, between November 2002 and October 2014. There were 334 participants with prediabetes enrolled in the final analysis. While a certain proportion of the prediabetic population progress to diabetes, the majority remain at the same level or even revert to normal glucose regulation. No gender difference was observed in the change of glucose regulation. However, results from an adjusted logistic regression analysis in males showed that physical activity was significantly associated with both elevated odds of reverting to normal glucose regulation (active vs inactive, OR 3.00, 95% CI 1.09 to 8.30) and developing diabetes (OR 0.34, 95% CI 0.13 to 0.92). Age, baseline 2 h glucose, triglycerides and smoking status were also risk factors significantly associated with diabetes development; while for females, waist circumference played a key role in the outcome. Every unit elevation of waist circumference was associated with lower odds of reverting to normal glucose regulation (OR, 0.94; 95% CI 0.89 to 0.98) and higher odds of progressing to diabetes (OR, 1.05; 95% CI 1.01 to 1.10). Baseline hypertension and family history of diabetes carried higher risk for developing diabetes as well.

CONCLUSIONS

Physical activity in males and waist circumference in females are important factors predicting both progression to diabetes and regression to normal glucose regulation, indicating that more exercise for males and lower waist circumference for females are beneficial for prediabetes to achieve reversion.

Weight loss effect of glucagon-like peptide-1 mimetics on obese/overweight adults without diabetes: A systematic review and meta-analysis of randomized controlled trials

BACKGROUND

Glucagon-like peptide-1 receptor agonists (GLP-1RAs) benefit weight maintenance for diabetic patients. We performed a systematic review to evaluate its weight loss effect on obese/overweight patients without diabetes in randomized controlled trials (RCTs).

METHODS

Literature updated to May 5, 2014 from Cochrane Library, MEDLINE, EMBASE and reference lists from relevant articles were identified. RCTs with GLP-1 mimetics treating obese/overweight adults without diabetes for at least 12 weeks were assessed. Studies lacking primary measurements were excluded. Three authors extracted data independently. Either fixed-effect or random-effect models were used to calculate weighted mean differences (WMDs), combined relative risks (RR) and 95% confidence interval (CI) in meta-analyses. Intertrial heterogeneity across studies was examined by I(2) and Q statistics.

RESULTS

A total of 1345 individuals retrieved from eight studies were involved and all included trials were of mild-to-moderate bias risks. Participants in GLP-1RA groups achieved a larger weight loss than those in control groups (-2.85 kg, 95%CI -3.55 to -2.14), and liraglutide may work in a dose-dependent fashion. GLP-1RAs also reduced body mass index (BMI) and waist circumferences (WC) and benefited systolic blood pressure and triglyceride regulation. But GLP-1RAs were associated with increased nausea and vomiting events.

CONCLUSIONS

GLP-1 mimetics induce a weight loss in addition to BMI and WC reduction in obese/overweight adults without diabetes. Further long-term randomized trials and basic studies are required to investigate the mechanisms.