A diabetes medication may significantly reduce heart failure risk in people carrying rare genetic variants linked to cardiomyopathy, according to new research published in Nature Medicine.
Researchers from Harvard Medical School, Mass General Brigham, and MIT analyzed data from the DECLARE-TIMI 58 trial, examining over 12,000 adults with type 2 diabetes and elevated cardiovascular risk. About 121 participants carried inherited gene variants that increase the likelihood of developing cardiomyopathy, a progressive heart muscle disease. After a median 4.2-year follow-up, the medication dapagliflozin—an SGLT2 inhibitor—was found to lower hospitalizations for heart failure roughly eight times more effectively in carriers of the genetic variant compared to those without the variant.
Among the 82% of variant carriers without prior heart failure history, 12.8% developed the condition when taking placebo, while zero heart-failure events occurred among variant carriers receiving dapagliflozin. “Historically, identifying a genetic variant for cardiomyopathy mostly meant telling a patient they were at high risk and not having a specific preventive therapy to offer,” said Dr. Shinwan Kany, co-lead author and visiting scientist at Mass General Brigham’s Cardiovascular Research Center. “These data show we do have tools to lower risk in these individuals.”
According to Dr. Andrew Freeman, a cardiologist at National Jewish Health who reviewed the findings, the research suggests “we may be entering an era where heart failure prevention becomes more precise and more genetically informed.” Freeman cautioned that these results remain “an exciting hypothesis-generating finding, not yet a practice-changing mandate for all patients with these genetic variants.” The narrow sample size of variant carriers limits the study, and the findings require further confirmation. SGLT2 inhibitors are already established medications that reduce heart failure hospitalization across diverse patient populations, including those with diabetes and chronic kidney disease. If future clinical trials confirm these findings, genetic screening could eventually help identify high-risk patients for early preventive treatment before heart failure symptoms develop.
This article is an AI-assisted summary. All facts and figures are drawn from the original report: https://newspub.live/health/diabetes-drug-could-slash-risk-of-fatal-heart-condition-in-one-group-scientists-reveal/