Diabetics benefit from participation in study
HONG KONG, Oct 09 (Reuters Health) - The structured care that diabetics get when they take part in a drug trial may help them avoid some effects of their illness, seemingly regardless of whether they get the drug or not, a researcher said here.
Diabetics often suffer from high blood pressure, a condition that greatly increases their risk of kidney disease. Studies have shown that good control over blood pressure and cholesterol reduces diabetics’ rates of heart disease and kidney complications. Drug treatment with ACE inhibitors–which primarily lower blood pressure–may also reduce kidney deterioration, but research is ongoing.
Early findings from a study investigating the effect of the ACE inhibitor losartan on kidney disease suggest that simply joining the study benefited type 2 diabetics, according to Wilson Yun-shing Leung of the Prince of Wales Hospital.
The Chinese group is part of an ongoing 4-year multinational study involving more than 1,500 type 2 diabetic patients with established kidney disease. Patients were divided into two groups: one group received losartan and the other was given an inactive placebo.
Leung said the results so far show the rate of kidney function decline slowed in 84% of people enrolled in the study. And, 60% of patients experienced more than a 50% reduction in the rate of their kidney function decline.
The researcher told Reuters Health that while losartan may protect the kidneys, the placebo may also have had an effect because most of the patients in the study overall started doing better.
“The aggressive blood pressure control and the intensive, structured care that the patients were receiving in the clinical trial setting may also have contributed to the slowing of their kidney disease progression,” the study leader, Leung, explained in an interview.
