Fenofibrate May Reduce Heart Disease Risk in Type 2 Diabetes
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According to a recent study, the drug fenofibrate could decrease the risk of cardiovascular diseases in patients with type 2 diabetes who have high triglycerides levels and low good cholesterol levels, despite being treated with statins. The study, supported by the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (NHLBI), published in JAMA Cardiology journal.
Diabetes and cardiovascular diseases
Diabetes is a metabolic disorder which can affect many parts of the body and is associated with serious complications, such as heart disease, stroke, erectile dysfunction, blindness, kidney failure and lower-limb amputation. Diabetes management and prevention is the need of the hour, because 29.1 million people in the United States are reported to have diabetes in 2014. This means that 9.3 percent of the population has diabetes.
Type 2 diabetes is the most common type, and about 90 to 95 percent of diabetic people have type 2 diabetes. Though this type is associated with older age, it can develop even during childhood. People with excess weight, physical inactivity, family history of diabetes, and previous history of gestational diabetes are at risk for type 2 diabetes. Unmanaged diabetes may lead to severe complications like stroke, amputations, etc. So there is a need for new drugs to manage diabetes effectively and prevent complications like cardiovascular diseases.
Efficiency of Fenofibrate
Fenofibrate is mainly used to help decrease elevated triglycerides levels in the blood. But the researchers needed to know if the drug, when associated with statin treatment, could also decrease the risk of heart disease in people with type 2 diabetes. People with type 2 diabetes are at high risk of cardiovascular-related issues, such as heart attacks, stroke, and even death, frequently since their levels of triglycerides are very high, and their high-density lipoprotein (HDL) cholesterol levels are low.
To find the efficiency of the combination of Fenofibrate with statins, the researchers analyzed 4,640 participants from the NHLBI-funded Action to Control Cardiovascular Risk in Diabetes (ACCORD) Lipid Study for five years after the wrapping up of the trial in 2009. The findings propose that fenofibrate therapy may be helpful in the way the researchers expected: by decreasing cardiovascular diseases in patients with type 2 diabetes who take statins but still have particularly high triglycerides levels and low HDL cholesterol levels. Yet, a randomized study is required to verify these findings, as per the authors.
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