ECE2017 Guided Posters Diabetes therapy & complications 2 (10 abstracts)
1University of South Carolina School of Medicine, Columbia, SC, USA; 2University of Palermo, Palermo, Sicily, Italy.
Introduction: Liraglutide exerts cardio-protective effects beyond of those on glucose metabolism, affecting several cardio-metabolic parameters, such as subclinical atherosclerosis. However, it is not known if those effects differ in the long-term between pre-elderly and elderly subjects with type-2 diabetes (T2DM).
Methods: We included 135 subjects with T2DM divided in 2 groups: i) 71 pre-elderly subjects (46 men and 25 women, 55±7 years), and ii) 64 elderly subjects (33 men and 31 women, 70±5 years). All subjects were naïve to incretin-based therapies and treated with liraglutide as add-on to metformin, 0.6 mg/day for two weeks, followed by a dose of 1.2 mg/day. At baseline and every 6 months fasting samples were taken for laboratory analyses and carotid-intima media thickness (cIMT) was assessed by B-mode ultrasound. Statistical analysis was performed by ANOVA and the Spearman correlation method.
Results: After18 months of liraglutide therapy HbA1creduced significantly in both groups (from 9.02±1.06 to 6.93±1.25 and from 8.50±0.71 to 6.74±0.90%, respectively) as well as fasting glycemia (from 9.57±3.33 to 7.16±2.83 mmol/l; and from 9.14±3.71 to 7.28±2.29 mmol/l, P<0.0001 for all. Anthropometric parameters changed although not significantly. Lipids, with the exception of HDL-cholesterol, reduced significantly only in pre-elderly subjects (triglycerides from 1.94±1.48 to 1.57±0.80 mmol/l, P=0.0458; total cholesterol from 4.90±1.57 to 4.27±1.04 mmol/l, P=0.0025; LDL-cholesterol from 2.92±1.44 to 2.34±0.91 mmol/l, P=0.0054. cIMT significantly decreased in both groups (from 0.96±0.18 to 0.78±0.20 mm; and from 0.98±0.17 to 0.79±0.20 mm, respectively; P<0.0001 for both). Changes in cIMT were positively associated only with changes in triglycerides in both pre-elderly (r=0.245, P=0.0398) and elderly (r=0.566, P<0.0001) groups.
Conclusion: Liraglutide significantly reduced cIMT in both pre-elderly and elderly subjects with T2DM, beyond glycemic control.