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Popular drug appears to protect against heart disease

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A Vanderbilt University Medical Center study found that empagliflozin reduced inflammatory monocyte and platelet aggregates in obese women with prediabetes after just two weeks, an effect that increased over three months and was not observed in the low-calorie diet group, suggesting a direct anti-inflammatory effect of the drug beyond weight loss.

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Why It Matters

Empagliflozin is a drug for the treatment of type 2 diabetes mellitus, belonging to the class of SGLT2 inhibitors. It is known to reduce the risk of cardiovascular complications, but the exact mechanisms of this protective effect are not fully understood.

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Empagliflozin, a popular diabetes drug, may further protect the heart and blood vessels by reducing inflammation. The results of the study by scientists at Vanderbilt University Medical Center were published in the journal Circulation.

The study involved 16 obese women with prediabetes who took empagliflozin for three months. For comparison, scientists observed a group of women following a low-calorie diet. The state of the immune system was assessed before the start of the experiment, after two weeks and after three months.

After just two weeks of taking the drug, the number of monocyte and platelet aggregates in the blood—cellular complexes that promote vascular inflammation and are associated with the development of cardiovascular diseases—significantly decreased. Three months later the decline became even more pronounced. This effect was not observed in the low-calorie diet group, so the changes could not be explained by weight loss alone.

In addition, the drug transferred monocytes from a pro-inflammatory state to a more stable one. Scientists believe that the discovered mechanism may explain part of the known protective effect of SGLT2 inhibitors on the heart and blood vessels.

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