Diabetes & vascular disease researchAug 14, 2024

Key health outcomes in type 2 diabetes linked to SGLT2 inhibitors and GLP-1 receptor agonists

GLP-1 Therapies Weekly Brief ↗PubMed ↗DOI ↗OA ↗

Updated Feb 8, 2026

Abstract

Sodium-glucose cotransporter-2 inhibitors (SGLT-2i) and glucagon-like peptide-1 receptor agonists (GLP-1RA) may improve health-related quality of life (HRQoL) in patients with type 2 diabetes.

SGLT-2i and GLP-1RA are associated with cardiovascular and renal protection beyond their ability to lower blood glucose.
These medications may reduce body weight and the risk of hypoglycemia, enhancing overall patient well-being.
They could alleviate diabetes-related distress and improve physical function.
SGLT-2i and GLP-1RA may decrease the incidence of conditions such as depression, cognitive decline, and other complications related to type 2 diabetes.
The combination of basal insulin with GLP-1RA may simplify treatment regimens and reduce the burden of insulin therapy.

Simplified

The newfound knowledge in type 2 diabetes (T2D) during the past decade for the sodium-glucose cotransporter-2 inhibitors (SGLT-2i) and glucagon-like peptide-1 receptor agonists (GLP-1RA) is wealthy in favorable results for key patient-important outcomes including morbidity, mortality and health-related quality of life (HRQoL). The SGLT-2i and GLP-1RA offer cardiovascular and renal protection beyond their glucose lowering effect, reduce body weight and hypoglycemia and improve diabetes-related distress, physical function and HRQoL. Along with the fixed-ratio combinations of basal insulin/GLP-1RA, they make feasible a regimen simplification and de-escalation from high dose and multiple injections of insulin reducing treatment burden. Besides cardiorenal risk reduction, the SGLT-2i and GLP-1RA reduce the incidence of depression, cognitive decline, respiratory disease, gout, arrhythmias and other co-occurring conditions of T2D, namely multimorbidity, which frequently complicates T2D and adversely affects HRQoL. The alleviation of multimorbidity by the pleiotropic effects of the SGLT-2i and GLP-1RA, could improve patients' HRQoL. The use of the SGLT-2i and GLP-1RA should be increased within a shared decision-making in which they are reframed as cardiorenal risk-reducing medications with the potential to lower blood glucose. By improving outcomes that patients may highly perceive and value, the SGLT-2i and GLP-1RA may facilitate the contemporary person-centered management of T2D.

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Competing interests

Declaration of conflicting interestsThe author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

PubMed

Key health outcomes in type 2 diabetes linked to SGLT2 inhibitors and GLP-1 receptor agonists

Abstract

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Competing interests

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