The treatment of patients with type 2 diabetes is typically accompanied by 
hypoglycemia, if insulin or derivatives of sulfonylurea are used within the 
treatment. Apart from the fact that hypoglycemias are the major obstacle to 
achieving the desirable compensation of diabetes, hypoglycemia also has a number 
of serious clinical consequences. A long term serious hypoglycemia may lead to a 
sudden death, heart attack or irreversible brain damage. Clinically significant 
are also the light or asymptomatic hypoglycemias which in a considerably 
negative way affect the patient's quality of life. The use of modern 
technologies in continuous monitoring of glycemias has shown that the occurrence 
of asymptomatic hypoglycemias is much higher than we anticipated and that they 
largely involve nocturnal hypoglycemia. Hypoglycemia is associated with an 
increased level of depression, anxiety, dissatisfaction with the treatment and 
with a greater number of physician office visits. Nocturnal hypoglycemia has a 
negative impact on the quality of sleep, it may impair cognitive functions and 
performance efficiency next day. The prevention of hypoglycemia is therefore one 
of the basic goals of diabetes treatment and the low risk of hypoglycemia is 
among the main requirements that we place on the newly developed antidiabetic 
drugs. The negligible risk of hypoglycemia, which is comparable to placebo both 
in monotherapy and in most combinations with the antidiabetic drugs available 
today, is evidenced by the data from the studies undertaken with empagliflozin. 
It shows that the low risk of hypoglycemia is one of the benefits of gliflozins, 
the new group of medications with a unique mechanism of effect which has quite 
recently appeared on our market.