Diabetes drug shows promise in treating and reversing heart failure

In this double-blind trial, 3,730 people with HFrEF took either empagliflozin (10 mg once daily) or a placebo, in addition to recommended therapy.The results concurred with the EMPATROPISM findings, showing that people both with and without diabetes in the empagliflozin group experienced a lower risk of cardiovascular death or hospitalization for heart failure than those in the placebo group.The EMPATROPISM study’s first author, Carlos Santos-Gallego, a postdoctoral fellow at the Icahn School of Medicine, explains the implications of these findings. He says, “Our clinical trial’s promising results show this diabetes drug can ameliorate lives of heart failure patients with reduced ejection fraction, enhance their exercise capacity, and improve their quality of life with little to no side effects.” “We expect this work will help lead to U.S. Food and Drug Administration [FDA] approval of empagliflozin for this patient population in the coming months.”Systolic congestive heart failure makes it difficult for the heart to pump blood through the body, meaning that other organs get less blood than they…In people with congestive heart failure, the heart is unable to pump blood around the body properly.