Diabetes Meds Can Cut Heart Failure Risk by 41%

People with diabetes who are taking certain antidiabetic medications may also be taking care of their heart….

David Lanfear, MD, and colleagues from Henry Ford Hospital in Detroit reported that, antidiabetic medications that enhance the GLP-1 pathway appeared to reduce the risk of heart failure hospitalization, all-cause hospitalization, and all-cause mortality in diabetics without a prior history of heart failure.

The retrospective study looked at 4,427 diabetic patients who were taking blood-sugar-lowering medications between January 1, 2000 and July 1, 2012 at Henry Ford. The authors found that those on the GLP-1 inhibitors had a 41% reduced risk of developing heart failure compared with those on other classes of medications (adjusted hazard ratio 0.59, 95% CI 0.41 to 0.85, P=0.001).

This patient group also had a 44% reduced risk of all-cause hospitalization and an 80% decreased risk of all-cause death (P=0.001 for both). Dr. Lanfear added that there was no influence on the effects of GLP-1 inhibitors from hypertension medications including angiotensin-converting enzyme inhibitors, angiotensin receptor blockers, and beta-blockers.

"We thought there might be some signal, but we didn’t expect it to be as strong as what we saw. We were surprised by the strength of the association," Lanfear said.

Reported at the American College of Cardiology meeting. March 2013