Fenofibrate Helps to Protect Diabetes Patients

In a study, researchers from the University of Sydney in Australia estimated that there will be at least 2.48 million adults with Type-2 diabetics by the year 2030. As alarming as this figure is, it is not the worst part of the disease. The consequences of uncontrolled diabetes are severe blindness, kidney failure, increased risk of heart disease and painful peripheral nerve damage.

Patients with Type-2 diabetes are more likely to have a 50% increased heart-risk than their non-diabetic counterparts to suffer stroke, myocardial infarction and heart failure. They also face a three to four fold higher risk of cardiovascular disease and mortality. Early intervention to control blood glucose levels and other risk factors has shown to be able to reduce the severity of the condition.

As such, it is needed timely that studies such as the Fenofibrate Intervention and Event Lowering in Diabetes (FIELD), which conducted by researchers in University of Sydney, has produced conclusive results proving that long-term lipid-lowering therapy using fenofibrate is able to reduce macro vascular and micro vascular outcomes in Type-2 diabetes. The FIELD study is a double-blind, randomized, placebo-controlled study conducted on 9,795 patients aged between 50 and 75 years with Type-2 diabetes n 63 clinical centers in Australia, New Zealand and Finland. Of this number, 1,012 participants (10.3% of the whole study population) were recruited to participate in the sub-study on diabetic eye-complications.

As fenofibrate belongs to a class of lipid modifying agents called fibrates, it is highly effective in the management of lipid levels. It therefore assists to decrease bad cholesterol (Low-Density-Lipoprotein) and triglycerides in the blood while simultaneously increasing the good cholesterol (High-Density-Lipoprotein).

Lead investigator of the FIELD study, Professor Anthony Keech of the NHMRC Clinical Trials Centre, University of Sydney, Australia shared that FIELD is the largest intervention study conducted for the prevention of cardiovascular disease in diabetics and that prevent patients treated with fenofibrate showed a significant reduction in total cardiovascular events.

The findings also showed a beneficial effect of fenofibrate on micro vascular complications associated with diabetes, specifically renal and eye disease. This is the first time that a lipid-lowering agent has been shown to reduce both the risk of macro vascular and micro vascular events in a large-scale clinical study in patients with type-2 diabetes. The FIELD study has shown that treatment with fenofibrate has promising effects in attenuating the progression of micro vascular complications of diabetes.

Diabetic patients are often required to go through a lifestyle modification to continue to provide them with high quality of life. At the same time, education and knowledge regarding the various modes of treatment for diabetes is essential.

References: Anthony K. Fenofibrate Intervention and Event Lowering in Diabetes. University of Sydney, Australia.