Diabetes and Kidney Disease

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Anchor lead: Metformin works to reduce heart risk in
people with diabetes and kidney disease, Elizabeth Tracey reports

October 17, 2019 Metformin is the first medication many people with type 2 diabetes are given, and now a new study shows that even in people with both diabetes and chronic kidney disease the drug is able to reduce the risk for cardiovascular events. Rita Kalyani, a diabetes expert at Johns Hopkins, explains.

Kalyani: People who have chronic kidney disease, the
majority have diabetes, and in people with diabetes who have uncontrolled blood
sugars kidney disease is one of the complications we worry most about.
Cardiovascular disease is the complication that is probably associated with the
greatest morbidity and mortality in people with diabetes and so both those
complications, cardiovascular disease and kidney disease, are very important.
And so to have specific medications that have benefit on reducing
cardiovascular events, is tremendously important.  :30

Kalyani notes that the FDA now requires manufacturers of
drugs for diabetes to demonstrate their impact on cardiovascular events as well
as the ability to lower blood sugar. At Johns Hopkins, I’m Elizabeth Tracey.