Cholesterol-Lowering Drug "FENOFIBRATE" Benefits Diabetics 

Description And Advantages  

A cholesterol-lowering drug can help reduce the narrowing of the arteries that is a potentially fatal complication for millions of diabetes sufferers, Canadian researchers said. Fenofibrate, marketed by Abbott Laboratories under the brand name Tricor, reduced atherosclerosis by up to 42 percent in an international study of diabetes patients. The Diabetes Atherosclerosis Intervention Study is the first trial to know how the benefit of correcting cholesterol levels in people suffering from type 2, or adult onset, diabetes.  

"We can reduce the rate of atherosclerosis in people with diabetes. One of the ways to do this is to reduce blood fat abnormalities," Professor George Steiner, of Toronto General Hospital, who directed the study, said.. Atherosclerosis is a leading cause of death and disability in type 2 diabetes patients. Diabetes patients have low levels of good cholesterol and high levels of bad cholesterol and triglycerides, a fat also considered a bad cholesterol. The imbalance is believed to be the reason why diabetics have a greater chance of dying from heart attack or stroke. In a report in The Lancet medical journal Steiner and his colleagues showed that during the three-year study of 418 men and women in Canada, Finland, France and Sweden, fenofibrate increased levels of high density lipoprotein cholesterol, or good cholesterol, and lowered bad cholesterol, including triglycerides. Diabetes, caused by a deficiency or lack of insulin, has already reached epidemic proportions and is expected to swell to 239 million cases worldwide by 2010.     

Source: Pharmabiz, March 2001