Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, November 11, 1993 TAG: 9311110041
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A-13 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE:
DATELINE: BOSTON LENGTH: Short
Kidney damage and eventual kidney failure are a frequent complication among diabetics who rely on insulin shots. The study supports earlier suggestions that drugs called ACE inhibitors are an effective way of forestalling the complication.
The study included 409 diabetics with early signs of kidney damage, called nephropathy. Half got an ACE inhibitor called captopril; the rest took placebos.
After three years of follow-up, the risk of dying or the need for dialysis or a kidney transplant was cut in half in the captopril patients.
The study was financed by the U.S. Public Health Service and by Bristol-Myers Squibb, which makes captopril. It was directed by Dr. Edmund J. Lewis of Rush-Presbyterian-St. Luke's Medical Center in Chicago and is published in today's New England Journal of Medicine.
About 200,000 Americans suffer from kidney failure and diabetic nephropathy is the leading cause, accounting for about one-third of all new cases.
The researchers aren't sure why ACE inhibitors help. But they say it appears the medicine's protection of the kidneys is unrelated to its ability to lower blood pressure.
ACE inhibitors frequently are prescribed for diabetics who show signs of kidney problems. The authors of the new study recommend that it become routine therapy. - Associated Press
by CNB