Empagliflozin markedly improves BMI, blood sugar, BP in diabetics: SUPER GATE study
Bolu, Turkey: Empagliflozin add-on treatment improved metabolic parameters, blood pressure, and anthropometric measures and did not deteriorate kidney functions in type 2 diabetes patients with heart conditions, show results from SUPER GATE study. The study findings are published in the Irish Journal of Medical Science.
Type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM) is one of the most common challenges that physicians face in daily clinical practice. Due to its chronic and insidious nature, it may lead to a number of complications that sometimes go noticed. When detected lately, it would be too late to reverse these complications. Keeping in view the current COVID-19 pandemic era, obstacles in accessing medical care may contribute to the development of diabetic complications. Therefore, there is a need for effective and potentially less harmful treatment strategies for managing the disease.
Empagliflozin is a sodium-glucose co-transporter-2 (SGLT-2) inhibitor that has yielded significant benefits for the treatment of type 2 diabetes mellitus. It is shown to be particularly beneficial for diabetic subjects with heart conditions. Gulali Aktas, Department of Internal Medicine, Bolu, Turkey, and colleagues aimed to obtain real-world data about the effects of empagliflozin add-on treatment on metabolic parameters, cardiovascular risk factors, and anthropometric measures in patients with T2DM.
For this purpose, the researchers enrolled type 2 diabetic patients with established coronary heart disease with empagliflozin added to their treatment. Anthropometric measures, clinical and laboratory data, were obtained and compared before and at the 6th month of the empagliflozin treatment.
The study yielded the following findings:
- Bodyweight, body mass index, waist and hip circumferences, systolic blood pressure, heart rate, LDL cholesterol, fasting plasma glucose, and HbA1c levels were significantly reduced on 6th month of empagliflozin treatment compared to the baseline values.
- Estimated GFR, serum creatinine, uric acid, total cholesterol, triglyceride, and HDL levels were not significantly changed.
"Based on the findings, we infer that that empagliflozin treatment may improve anthropometric measures, metabolic parameters, and blood pressure and does not cause deterioration in kidney functions in type 2 diabetic patients with established coronary heart disease," wrote the authors.
Reference:
The study titled, "Sodium glucose co-transporter-2 inhibitor, Empagliflozin, is associated with significant reduction in weight, body mass index, fasting glucose, and A1c levels in Type 2 diabetic patients with established coronary heart disease: the SUPER GATE study," is published in the Irish Journal of Medical Science.
DOI: https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11845-021-02761-6#Sec8
