Assessment of Dapagliflozin on Vascular Health in Patients With Type 2 Diabetes

Overview

Patients with Type 2 Diabetes Mellitus (T2DM) have changes in blood vessel health that can lead to a higher chance of developing heart attacks or strokes. New medications for T2DM including dapagliflozin, which is a Sodium-Glucose Cotransporter-2 inhibitor (SGLT2) inhibitor, may help protect the heart and blood vessels. The overarching objective of this mechanistic study is to learn how a Sodium-Glucose Cotransporter-2 (SGT2) inhibitor, dapagliflozin, impacts vascular health in patients with Type 2 Diabetes Mellitus (T2DM). The investigators will compare the changes in vascular health to changes in endothelial cell (EC) phenotype including non-coding RNA (ncRNA) to develop evidence supporting the mechanism of cardiovascular benefit of SGLT2 inhibitors. This study will provide novel information regarding the mechanism of effects of novel treatments for endothelial function and vascular health in patients with T2DM to reduce cardiovascular (CV) risk. The research aims to assess the: * effects of dapagliflozin on EC phenotype. * impact of dapagliflozin on vasodilator function and additional measures of vascular health including arterial stiffness and circulating markers of vascular health.

The study design is a two-treatment, two-period crossover, double-blind, placebo-controlled design study to investigate the effect of the SGLT2 inhibitor, dapagliflozin, on Endothelial Cell (EC) phenotype, EC RNA levels, circulating microRNA (miRNA), and biomarkers in patients with T2DM. Subjects will be randomized to treatment order in a 1:1 ratio to receive SGLT2 inhibitor (dapagliflozin) and then placebo or vice versa in a crossover design. Total study period for each study subject is 14 weeks consisting of: two treatment periods (dapagliflozin and placebo) lasting 6 weeks each (12 weeks total) and a 2 week washout period between treatment periods. Each subject undergoes a washout period of 2 weeks after completing first 6 weeks of treatment with either placebo or dapagliflozin. This is followed by crossover to the alternate treatment period of 6 weeks with dapagliflozin or placebo depending on their first treatment. Randomization will be done in block sizes of 2 or 4. Once assigned to treatment, participants will receive dapagliflozin 10 mg/day or placebo for 6 weeks. The study was terminated due to the inability to enroll the anticipated 50 participants to test the research hypotheses (only 3 participants were randomized in almost 3 years). There were too few samples to test for endothelial cell related outcomes, miRNA, and biomarkers.