Medical Encyclopedia

Your age is considered an important factor determining the expediency of Starlix as your anti-diabetic medication. Age plays a significant role in determining the risk of developing diabetes type 2. But as it turns out, it can also exert an impact on the way some of anti-diabetic medicines are absorbed by the body. There are some traditional recommendations usually addressed to different age groups taking Starlix. It must be said, however, that these recommendations are tentative because no consistent experiments on humans, especially of young age, have been carried out. The grounds for these recommendations are the data about the diabetes development in patients with Starlix treatment.

Diabetic therapy often admits of a combination of different medications all aimed at bringing blood glucose levels to normal and acceptable limits. The interaction of different agents can have different results.

One of the most typical interactions with Starlix is that of another glucose-decreasing medicine Metformin. This combination does not cause any relevant changes in the action of either of these agents. Unless such a combinational intake stimulates hypoglycemia, it produces the intended result and is therefore quite acceptable. The optimal combination is 120 mg of Starlix 3 times a day before meals and 500 mg of Metformin a day.

The intake of Starlix can entail a special type of hypoglycemia, known as iatrogenic hypoglycemia. The reason for this type of hypoglycemia is either overdose of insulin or excessive sulphonyl urea therapy, which is taking short-term peroral medications aimed at causing insulin secretion.

Iatrogenic hypoglycemia brings on the whole set of acute glycemic syndromes. Such symptomatic reactions to hypoglycemia as profuse sweating, tremor, dizziness, limosis, heart palpitation, nausea and general indisposition are quite typical if a patient takes Starlix and appears liable to a decrease in glucose levels. Usually these symptoms are low-grade and cut off quickly unless the hypoglycemic condition is aggravated. The reason is basically not the overdose, but the inadequate distribution of the dose throughout the day. As a result, desynchronization between postprandial glucose increase and the glucose decreasing effect of Starlix and suchlike medicines occurs. The hypoglycemic manifestations vary from disorientation and overall or focal seizures to coma, permanent brain damage and even death. If hypoglycemia is really severe, irreversible brain damage occurs within half an hour of this condition. That is why it is highly recommended to be very careful when taking Stralix because it is acknowledged as a hypoglycemic medication.

Starlix (nateglinide) is a peroral anti-diabetic medicine, a derivative of phenylalanine, produced by one of the largest suppliers of anti-diabetic agents of different types in the world, a Swiss innovative healthcare products company Novartis. Starlix is used to treat diabetes mellitus, or diabetes type 2, both as a mono-therapy and sometimes in combination with other medications with complementary mechanisms of action. Its basic function is restoring insulin secretion in the body and therefore it leads to the decrease in postprandial concentration of glucose in the blood as well as the decrease in the level of glycated hemoglobin.

Having a healthy pregnancy with diabetes is known to be difficult, but women with preexisting diabetes are as likely as women without the disorder to give birth to a healthy child. The determining factor of a healthy pregnancy for a woman with diabetes is keeping blood glucose within the target range, ideally both before getting pregnant and during the pregnancy. To do this a diabetic woman needs a very carefully thought-out and flexible diabetes treatment plan reasonably combining meals, exercises and any physical activity and the intake of anti-diabetic medicines.