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Home > Press Center > Press Releases from 2005 Annual Meeting > Blood Pressure Drug Promises to Reduce Complications of Type 2 Diabetes

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Jill Goodwin
Director of Communications
312-334-2308

A drug currently used to treat hypertension has been shown to increase blood flow in the skin of persons with Type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM), suggesting that it might have the potential to significantly reduce diabetic complications such as foot ulcers resulting from injury to the endothelium, the inner lining of blood vessels. Such complications are a hallmark of the disease, which affects millions of patients.

Valsartan, one of a class of drugs known as angiotensin receptor blockers, reduces blood pressure by blocking the ability of the angiotensin II to constrict or squeeze arteries and veins. In a randomized, double-blind, cross over study of 26 adults, half of whom had T2DM, valsartan increased skin blood flow by 60 percent in diabetic patients, compared with a 2 percent increase when the same were subjects treated with placebo. It did not affect the vascular function of the non-diabetic subjects. A report of the study appears in the April issue of the Journal of Vascular Surgery, published by the Society for Vascular Surgery.

The study was conducted by Aristidis Veves, MD, DSC, research director of the Microciruclation lab and the Joslin-Beth Israel Deaconess Foot Center, and associate professor, Harvard Medical School. He speculates that the results derive from two different mechanisms.

First, because lowering the body’s production of angiotensin II improves the function of the endothelium, it is reasonable to assume that blocking the action of the hormone would have the same effect. Second, valsartan also reduced the activity of an enzyme called poly(ADP-ribose)polymerase or PARP, which is likewise associated with endothelial dysfunction.

If confirmed by further studies, said Veves, “these results can have a direct clinical impact by reducing the risk of foot ulceration, a common problem in diabetic patients with impaired nerve function in the lower extremities.”