Doctors looked at many different studies to understand how these diabetes medicines affect a dangerous condition known as diabetic ketoacidosis. The research combined information from both controlled tests and real-world observations to get a clear picture of the safety of these drugs.
The results show that using these medicines is linked to a higher chance of developing this condition. This risk becomes much bigger when a person has high blood sugar levels before taking the medicine. In some studies, the chance of this problem was more than double for people with high blood sugar.
Even in strict tests where doctors carefully controlled what patients took, the risk was still higher for those with high blood sugar. However, for people with lower blood sugar levels, the increase in risk was not always clear or was very small. The study team says we cannot say for sure that the medicine causes the problem, but the link is strong.
Because of this, doctors need to be careful when prescribing these drugs. It is very important to check blood sugar levels before starting treatment. Patients should know that having high blood sugar makes the risk of this serious condition go up while taking these specific diabetes medicines.