Hey all, welcome back to the Real Life Pharmacology podcast.

I'm your host, Eric Christensen, pharmacist.

You can track me down on LinkedIn is a good way to find me.

Also through the website, real life pharmacology.com, hit the contact button and send me your thoughts on whatever it is you'd like me to hear about.

So with that, today I'm going to cover Piaglittazone, and the brand name on this

medication is Actos used in the management of type 2 diabetes.

That's really the only thing I've ever seen it used for in clinical practice from the classification

TZDs and really Piaglittosone is the only drug at this point left in this class.

Rosie glittazone was basically pulled off the market due to risks of cardiac problems and things of that nature.

So with that, the management of diabetes, lowering blood sugar, how does it do it?

What is its mechanism of action?

So mechanism of action, if you ever see this on your pharmacology exams, it's an agonist at P-par gamma.

And that has multiple different effects, but basically alters glucose and lipid breakdown

and various other things. But primarily, I think what's remembered most is that it improves the response to insulin

and particularly increases insulin, or excuse me, reduces insulin resistance out in the

periphery and the muscles and liver and things of that nature and allows blood sugars to go down through that mechanism.

So when I think about that mechanism,

I do always remember that it does not stimulate the release of insulin.

So you think of sulfonyureas, they actually stimulate the release of

insulin. And drugs that either are insulin or stimulate the release of insulin have a higher

likelihood of hypoglycemia. So peyaglitazone, you know, by itself, probably not a really strong

potential to produce hypoglycemia.

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