Incretin Analogues in Therapy of Type 2 Diabetes and Obesity

Abstract

Type 2 diabetes is one the most common metabolic diseases, which are obviously the price to pay for lifestyle changes in most people. Dangerous in itself, this disease provokes other metabolic disorders such as obesity, and neurodegenerative diseases, such as Alzheimer's disease. Pharmacologists are very active in creating drugs for these illnesses. The design of synthetic highly active analogues of incretins, peptide hormones produced by neuroendocrine cells, is one of the most promising research areas. Glucagon-like peptide-1 and glucose-dependent insulinotropic polypeptide are the best known incretin hormones. Analogues of the first peptide have already found application in medical practice. The next step in the creation of drugs for diabetes was the development of polyagonists, which combine the properties of several different peptide hormones responsible for glucose homeostasis. The combination of the properties of incretins gives hopes for a synergism net effect. In the past few years, the creation of such coagonists has been very fast. In some cases, the results of clinical trials have already been obtained; however, they often contradict each other. Making clear this difficult situation was the main motivation for writing the present review. incretins, glucan-like peptide-1, glucose-dependant insulintropic polypeptide, agonism, antagonism, type 2 diabetes, obesity