European Primary Care Cardiovascular Society

Metformin no longer regarded as first-line therapy in new ESC/EASD Guidelines on diabetes

News - Sep. 4, 2019

Among the five new ESC guidelines presented at this year’s ESC congress, was the 2019 ESC Guidelines on diabetes, pre-diabetes, and cardiovascular diseases developed in collaboration with the EASD. Since the publication of the previous version in 2013, a lot of new evidence has become available that has implications for daily clinical practice. The most important novel insights are the result of a number of CV safety trials for type 2 diabetes (T2DM) therapies. All have reported CV safety, but several have also demonstrated, for the first time in the diabetes field, clear evidence of CV benefit. This regards SGLT2 inhibitors and GLP-1 receptor agonists (GLP-1RAs).

In other ways, and on a global scale, little has changed. The prevalence of DM worldwide continues to increase, rising to 10% of the population in countries such as China and India, which are now embracing western lifestyles. Combining the increasing prevalence with the novel treatment opportunities, shows the relevance of an update to the earlier guidelines.

Here, we highlight some of the new recommendations in the 2019 ESC/EASD Guidelines on diabetes, pre-diabetes and CV diseases.

For all new recommendations, we refer to the full guidelines (see link below).

- Our reporting is based on the information provided at the ESC congress -

The ESC/EASD guidelines have been simultaneously published at Eur Heart J

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