Incretin Analogues in the Therapy of Type 2 Diabetes and Obesity

Type 2 diabetes is one the most common metabolic diseases, which is obviously the price of lifestyle changes for many people. While being 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 and stable 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 hope for a synergetic network effect. In the past few years, the creation of such co-agonists has progressed very rapidly. In some cases, the results of clinical trials have already been obtained; however, they often contradict each other. This difficult situation was the main motivation for writing the present review.