Pharmacy Times spoke with Susan Cornell, PharmD, associate director, OEE at Midwestern University College of Pharmacy, about her session at McKesson ideaShare 2022, titled “Diabetes Updates, Guidelines and Trends.”
Cornell: Absolutely, you know, lifestyle is the cornerstone of treatment. And a lot of times, as patients, people think, “Oh, there’s a pill, I take it, and then it’s all right.” That’s not the case when it comes to diabetes and cardiovascular, you know, it really revolves around a lifestyle and drugs are always added to the lifestyle. So I think it’s very important. Again, pharmacists, when we’re talking to the patient, advising them, especially a new medication, or refills to reinforce the lifestyle modification that should come with this, thus supporting not eating large meals, eating less with meal frequency. If you are going to eat a large meal, breakfast should be the largest meal of the day, and dinner should be the smallest. You want to follow the natural biological rhythms of our body and our natural physiology. So our metabolism is highest in the morning, you wake up and you’re ready to go. Everything you eat in the morning is digested very quickly. But as the day goes on, your metabolism slows down, your digestion slows down. So you want to match your meals to your metabolism. And again, these are simple things that pharmacists can talk to patients about, you know, they’re picking up their SGLT-2 inhibitors or their injectable GLP-1, and as pharmacist advice, making sure the patient understands how to use the device, how to take the drug, you know, to get the best effects with the fewest side effects. They can say, “Oh, well, you know, let’s talk about lifestyle.” Again, there is an opportunity there because without a lifestyle, diabetes cannot be controlled.
Source: www.pharmacytimes.com