A review on metformin and acarbose as anti-diabetic drugs with representative mechanisms

Abstract

Type 2 diabetes is a disease that happens to many people globally. But surprisingly, it is attacking more and more people like a tsunami over centuries of development of technology, and it even shows younger trends. It is still an issue that many patients lack awareness of type 2 diabetes. This paper mainly reviews two of the first-line anti-diabetic drugs used in the treatment of type 2 diabetes in these few years and aims to improve the perception of type 2 diabetes among the public. To begin with, the paper shows some overview of diabetes, including the symptoms and the pathogenesis, in order to explain why it is a disease with such a great impact on humans. Impacts like mortality are also mentioned to demonstrate the severity of type 2 diabetes in the world. Next, metformin and acarbose are used as two examples of the mainstream mode of therapy for type 2 diabetes. In this part, the paper discusses the history, the chemical properties, the manufacture, the mechanisms and the possibility of repurposing of these two drugs. Also, the paper makes a comparison between metformin and acarbose, and proposes some summative ideas.