Liraglutide mastery course
Unit 6 of 11
Cardiovascular & kidney outcomes: LEADER
Lowering blood sugar is not the same as preventing the events diabetes causes. The LEADER trial asked the harder questi…
When a diabetes drug started preventing heart attacks
Lowering blood sugar is not the same as preventing the events diabetes causes. The LEADER trial asked the harder question directly: in 9,340 adults with type 2 diabetes at high cardiovascular risk, did liraglutide reduce actual heart attacks, strokes, and cardiovascular deaths?
It did. LEADER showed a 13% relative reduction in major cardiovascular events, and a pre-specified analysis found a kidney benefit too. This unit reads those outcomes carefully, including what was significant, what was not, and why the benefit is only partly explained by weight and glucose.