Liraglutide Reduces Risk of Stroke, Cardiovascular Death in Patients With Diabetes

In case you have diabetes and your doctor doesn't tell you about this in the next month.
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Liraglutide safely and effectively decreases the overall risk of myocardial infarction (MI), stroke or cardiovascular death in patients with type 2 diabetes, according to a study published in the New England Journal of Medicine.
Liraglutide was also associated with a reduction in kidney disease and death from all causes.
“This is the first diabetes drug that has shown across-the-board benefits for cardiovascular diseases, and this suggests it plays a role in treating atherosclerosis, which is what leads to heart attacks and strokes,” said senior author John Buse, MD, Diabetes Care Center at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, North Carolina.
The Liraglutide Effect and Action in Diabetes Evaluation of Cardiovascular Outcome Results (LEADER) study randomised 9,430 adult patients with type 2 diabetes who were at high risk of heart disease to receive liraglutide or other diabetes medications to control their blood sugar.
Both groups of patients were prescribed medications to address associated health problems, such as high blood pressure and high cholesterol.
The trial lasted more than 3 years. In the end, liraglutide was associated with a 13% lower overall risk of having a MI or stroke, or of dying from cardiovascular cause; a 22% lower risk of cardiovascular mortality; a 15% lower risk of all-cause mortality; and a 22% lower risk of new evidence of advanced kidney disease
“This changes the whole conversation about treating diabetes,” said Dr. Buse said. “To date, people have taken diabetes drugs to lower blood sugar. Now we can say that they should take liraglutide to prevent or delay the worst things that occur commonly in diabetes -- heart attacks, strokes, advanced kidney disease, and death.”
SOURCE: University of North Carolina Health Care System