A recent Canadian study has found that a drug prescribed to treat heart failure could protect kidney and heart health in individuals with type 2 diabetes and chronic kidney disease.
Results from the study were presented on November 4, at ASN Kidney Week 2023 organized by the American Society of Nephrology, in Philadelphia.
The study of a drug named “Sotagliflozin”, which has been approved by the FDA in May as a heart failure treatment, also involved non-diabetic patients.
Sotagliflozin is a Sodium-glucose cotransporter-2 (SGLT2) inhibitor, which lowers blood sugar by inhibiting glucose absorption in the kidneys, and can also be used to treat type 2 diabetes.
Researchers have found that these drugs provide kidney- and heart-related benefits to patients with and without diabetes.
During the study, the research team observed 10,584 patients with type 2 diabetes, chronic kidney disease and cardiovascular factors to receive sotagliflozin or placebo.
Over a median follow-up of 16 months, the researchers found sotagliflozin reduced the risk of glomerular filtration by 50 percent, and dialysis or kidney transplant by 38 percent.
They also found that compared to placebo, sotagliflozin reduced the risk of heart and kidney problems, as well as cardiovascular diseases-related deaths by 23 percent.
“These effects add to the already reported benefits of sotagliflozin in reducing both heart failure and ischemic events such as myocardial infarction or stroke,” said corresponding author David Cherney of the University of Toronto.
“Sotagliflozin is now FDA approved to reduce the risk of cardiovascular death and heart failure events with a broad label that includes patients with heart failure or chronic kidney disease, so the drug is now an option for nephrologists and cardiologists, as well as primary care physicians, to prescribe,” he told the York Alert website.
