TORONTO, 13 April — A Canadian-led international study indicates that a drug designed to lower blood fats and cholesterol levels could help type 2 diabetics.
Type 2 diabetes is a form of the disease that develops in later life and lifestyle. The risk of heart disease is about four times higher in those with type 2 diabetes than those without.
The drug, fenofibrate, reduced artery narrowing by 42 percent in individuals with type 2 diabetes, the Diabetes Artherosclerosis Intervention Study, just published in the Lancet medical journal, revealed.
The study was carried out in collaboration with the World Health Organization.
“This is the first piece of evidence that has specifically demonstrated in type 2 diabetes that correcting blood fat abnormalities reduces the progression of coronary artery disease,” said Dr. Peter Gladstone, a cardiologist and assistant professor at the University of Toronto’s medical school.
A random selection of 418 men and women with type 2 diabetes in Finland, France, Sweden and Canada were studied for three years while changing their diets and taking either fenofibrate or a placebo.
Like most people with type 2 diabetes, those studied had lipid (cholesterol and triglyceride) abnormalities including reduced levels of “good” cholesterol and increased levels of triglycerides- a lipid also associated with an increased risk of narrowing of coronary arteries.
Half of the participants had a history of heart disease, and one-third of them had undergone angioplasty or bypass surgery.
The study showed that correcting even mild lipid or blood fat abnormalities with fenofibrate reduces coronary artery disease progression in type 2 diabetes.
The study showed that fenofibrate: Reduced the progression of artery narrowing by 42 percent, corrected lipid levels by increasing levels of HDL (good cholesterol) and decreasing levels of LDL (bad cholesterol) and triglycerides, and reduced clinical coronary events by 23 percent.
Coronary disease in individuals with type 2 diabetes is a major health issue that affects many people.
This means that people with type 2 diabetes should have their blood lipids tested annually and if there are any abnormalities, the treatment should be discussed with their physicians. Canadians have been leading the way in Diabetes research.
In May of last year, University of Alberta researchers announced that they had reversed diabetes in eight people for more than a year through islet-cell transplants followed with drug therapy.
In August, a microbiology and infectious disease researcher at the University of Calgary discovered how white blood cells cause inflammation that leads to destruction of insulin-producing cells in the pancreas.
In November, University of Alberta and Korean researchers announced that they had cured diabetes in rats and mice using a gene therapy to trick their bodies into making an insulin-like substance.
The therapy is thought to also help the growing numbers of those with type 2 diabetes.