Hello!
We are a group of doctors, researchers, patients and other stakeholders from around the United States studying the use of the drug metformin in patients with both diabetes and kidney disease. With the permission of TuDiabetes.org, we are sharing some info about our study with this community. Any comments, questions or concerns that you have would be greatly appreciated.
Our study is funded by the Patient Centered Outcomes Research Institute (www.pcori.org). Connecting with patients is central to our study design and goals. We would be interested to hear about your thoughts about using metformin for diabetes when a person also has kidney disease. What have you heard about this subject before? Are there questions that you have been unable to find answers to?
Study Background:
Many patients with diabetes take metformin. Metformin helps the body better use the insulin it produces. Research studies done 50 years ago showed that medicines related to metformin were harmful for patients with kidney disease. As a result, many doctors don’t use metformin to treat patients with kidney disease. More recently, studies have shown metformin to be safe for patients with mild to moderate kidney disease. But researchers still don’t know if metformin is safe for people with serious kidney disease.
In this study, our research team is comparing metformin with other commonly used medicines to see how well each treats type 2 diabetes among patients with chronic kidney disease. The team is also looking to see if the effect of the medicines varies for different groups of people based on factors such as age and race.
Our study is not a clinical trial. We are looking at data that was collected as a part of health care for patients who were treated in New York City, North Carolina and Tennessee.
Who can this research help?
Results may help patients with type 2 diabetes and chronic kidney disease and their doctors when considering how to treat type 2 diabetes.
What is the research team doing?
The research team is looking at health records and lab results from patients with type 2 diabetes and kidney disease. The team is comparing patients taking metformin and patients treated with other commonly used medicines to see how well each treatment reduces
• Blood sugar levels
• HbA1c, which measures average blood sugar levels over the past three months
• Body mass index, or BMI, which estimates body fat based on height and weight
• Hospital visits for buildup of acid in the bloodstream, high blood sugar, heart attack, stroke, and heart failure
• Blood sugar and HbA1c for different groups of patients by age; sex; BMI; race; history of kidney disease, liver disease, and heart failure; renal function; and metformin dose
Patients are providing input on this study from start to finish, including helping to choose research questions and interpret results.
Please note that this posting is NOT meant to ask you to enroll in any study as a participant or to ask you to share data about yourself.
Instead, our goal is to let the community know about our ongoing work and hear any questions or feedback you might have about the research study.
You can read more about our study here: