By David Liu, PHD

Friday July 20, 2012 (foodconsumer.org) -- Medical researchers reported in ClinicalDiabetes - a publication by American Diabetes Association that Exenatide  once weekly, a glucagon-like peptide-1 receptor agonist, is effective at helping type 2 diabetes mellitus patients to manage their blood sugar.

Susan LaRue and colleagues, authors of the report say Exenatide once weekly is the first and only blood sugar lowering therapy approved for once-weekly use in  patients with type 2 diabetes and clinical trials demonstrated that the therapy significantly reduced A1C or by 1.3 to 1.9% and body weight by 2 to 4 kg during a period of six weeks with minimal risk of hypoglycemia in the absence of a sulfonylurea.

A1C refers to glycated hemoglobin (hemoglobin A1c, HbA1c, A1C, or Hb1c; sometimes also HbA1c), which is a hemoglobin that is measured primarily to determine the average plasma glucose concentration over prolonged periods of time, wikipedia states. 

Sulfonylurea is an antidiabetic drug indicated for use by diabetes patients to help them control serum glucose levels.

The side effects include injection-site reactions and mild to moderate gastrointestinal events, which increased after initiation of exenatide once weekly, but the tolerability improved over time. 

Reduced A1C and weight were maintained for 3 years in patients who continued to use exenatide once weekly.