Scientists from Sichuan University found a common diabetes drug could help reduce death risk in people with heart failure.
They that sodium-glucose cotransporter-2 (SGLT2) inhibitors reduce hospitalizations and may reduce cardiovascular deaths among people experiencing heart failure regardless of the presence of diabetes.
SGLT2 inhibitors are a class of prescription medicines that are FDA-approved for use with diet and exercise to lower blood sugar in adults with type 2 diabetes.
Medicines in the SGLT2 inhibitor class include canagliflozin, dapagliflozin, and empagliflozin.
These findings support existing guidelines that recommend SGLT2 inhibitors for preventing incidents and worsening heart failure in people with type 2 diabetes, heart failure, or both.
The research is published in the Annals of Internal Medicine and was conducted by ….. et al.
Many heart failure patients do not receive optimal therapy until they present to a hospital with exacerbations, and patients who receive a diagnosis in the hospital have an increased risk of death and recurrent hospitalization.
Previous studies have shown that SGLT2 inhibitors reduce the risks of hospitalization for heart failure and cardiovascular death for people with diabetes.
Other studies have also shown that these benefits may extend to patients with heart failure but without diabetes.
In the study, the team reviewed studies totaling 15,022 participants that examined dapagliflozin, empagliflozin, or canagliflozin to evaluate the effect of these medications in patients with heart failure, regardless of the presence of type 2 diabetes.
They found that in patients with heart failure—both those with preserved and those with reduced ejection fraction and regardless of the presence of diabetes—SGLT2 inhibitors could reduce hospitalizations for heart failure and cardiovascular death.
However, the team warns that these reductions were associated with increasing rates of genital infections.
They caution that treatment with SGLT2 inhibitors should be balanced against the potential harms of the side effects.
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If you care about heart failure, please read studies about diet that could help reverse heart failure without meds, and drinking water may reduce your risk of heart failure.
For more information about diabetes, please see recent studies about how bitter melon could benefit people with diabetes, and results showing how to control diabetes apart from blood sugar levels.
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