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Effect of empagliflozin on plasma lipids and lipoproteins in type 2 diabetes and heart failure - Empire HF and SIMPLE.

Emanuelsson F, Jensen J, Omar M, Jürgens M, Kistorp C, Brandt-Jacobsen NH, Møller JE, Schou M et al.

Journal of clinical lipidology, 2025

190 participants · 6 citations

Abstract

Objective: Beyond glucose-lowering, sodium-glucose co-transporter 2 (SGLT2) inhibitors have cardioprotective effects with unclear mechanisms. We examined changes in an extensive panel of plasma lipids, lipoproteins, and apolipoproteins and whether these changes were independent of weight loss, hemoglobin A1c, and hematocrit in patients treated with empagliflozin vs placebo to better understand the observed cardioprotective effects.

Methods: Post-hoc analyses of 2 double-blind, placebo-controlled trials, the Empire HF trial including 190 patients with heart failure and reduced ejection fraction and the SIMPLE trial including 90 patients with type 2 diabetes randomized to, respectively, 10 mg and 25 mg empagliflozin daily or placebo for 12 weeks.

Results: In studies combined, empagliflozin reduced age and sex adjusted body weight by 1.40 kg (SEM: 0.10; P < .001) and hemoglobin A1c by 2.71 mmol/mol (SEM: 0.24; P < .001); and increased hematocrit by 1.9% (SEM: 0.12; P < .001) compared to placebo. No mean changes were seen in concentrations of total cholesterol, low-density lipoprotein (LDL) cholesterol, small dense LDL cholesterol, very low-density lipoprotein cholesterol, triglyceride rich lipoprotein cholesterol, non-high-density lipoprotein (non-HDL) cholesterol, apolipoprotein B, lipoprotein(a), HDL cholesterol, and triglycerides adjusted for body weight, hemoglobin A1c, and hematocrit with empagliflozin compared to placebo.

Conclusion: Empagliflozin treatment reduced body…

How strong is the evidence?

Evidence Hub reads this as a randomized trial, done in people. Its evidence level is 2 of 5 (High · randomized trial). Randomized trials of a reasonable size are the strongest single-study design. Reported size: 190 participants or records.

How the five levels of evidence work. The level is assigned automatically from the abstract and can be wrong, so check the paper.

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