Drug that lowers blood sugar prevents hospitalization and death in heart failure; when given early

A new study shows that patients with diabetes who started a blood-sugar-regulating drug soon after hospital discharge for acute heart failure had better results than those who received the drug later.

“Starting a sodium-glucose cotransporter-2 (SGLT2) inhibitor drug within three days of hospital discharge reduced the risk of re-hospitalization for heart failure or cardiovascular death by 22 per cent, compared to starting it within 4 to 90 days, and by 35 per cent compared to delaying it for at least 180 days,” says lead investigator Che-Yuan (Joey) Wu, a trainee at ICES and a doctoral trainee in the Department of Pharmacology and Toxicology at the University of Toronto’s Temerty Faculty of Medicine.

SGLT2 inhibitors are a class of prescription medicines that are approved for use with diet and exercise to lower blood sugar in adults with type 2 diabetes.

Heart failure is a lifelong condition where heart muscle isn’t pumping as well as it should be, and therefore, not pushing out enough blood to supply the body’s need for oxygen. Some SGLT2 inhibitors have been approved for use in heart failure with or without diabetes.

“This real-world evidence provides clinicians with an evidence-based urgency signal to start these medications quickly after acute heart failure in people with diabetes,” says Dr. Walter Swardfager, senior author of the study and a scientist in the Hurvitz Brain Sciences Research Program at Sunnybrook Research Institute.

Read the study published in the European Journal of Heart Failure.