Watanabe Studies Shifting Diabetes Treatment Patterns

Department of Clinical Pharmacy Chair Jonathan Watanabe, PharmD, MS, PhD, is senior author of a new UCSF study that’s the first to track how diabetes treatment patterns have shifted over time in response to evolving clinical guidelines.  

Drawing on more than 40,000 patient records from 2014 to 2022, the analysis reveals encouraging trends — such as increased use of newer, more effective medications for type 2 diabetes — but also highlights a persistent treatment gap.  

“Some of the most devastating consequences of diabetes come from its effects on the heart and kidney, and, thankfully, we now have drugs that target those effects head on,” Watanabe said. “But to maximize the benefit for the many hundreds of thousands of patients in the U.S., we need to increase access to these drugs and make sure that clinicians understand just how beneficial they are.” 

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