Background: Obesity is a major risk factor for type 2 diabetes. Improvement in glycemic control using insulin, sulfonylurea and meglitinide is often accompanied by weight gain. But metformin and a-glucosidase inhibitor have a positive effect(decrease) on weight. In this study, we compared the effect of voglibose, glimepiride, and diet alone on body weight and glycemic control after a period of 12 weeks.
Method: The patients with type 2 diabetes were randomly assigned to one of the following three treatment groups : Patients treated for 12 weeks with voglibose, those treated with glimepiride and those with diet alone. Anthropometric parameters and metabolic parameters were measured at the initial stage and after 12 weeks. The study consisted of 448 patients with type 2 diabetes. There were 223 patients in the voglibose group, 176 in the glimepiride group, and 49 in the diet alone group.
Results: The patients treated with voglibose and diet alone showed higher decreased body weight compared with glimepirice group (voglibose vs glimepiride, P=0.001; diet vs glimepiride, P=0.016). In contrast, glimepiride group showed more decreased HbA1C compared with voglibose and diet alone groups (glimepiride vs voglibose, P=0.001; glimepiride vs diet, P=0.004).
Conclusions: Voglibose showed more effective on body weight reduction despite the relatively weak glycemic control compared with glimepiride.

Keywords: voglibose, glimepiride, body weight, type 2 diabetes