Aims/hypothesis: Regulators worldwide are reviewing safety data on glucagon-like peptide-1 receptor agonists (GLP-1RA), following reports by the Icelandic Medicines Agency in July 2023 of suicidal ideation and self-injury (SIS) in individuals taking liraglutide and semaglutide. We aimed to assess the risk of SIS in new users of GLP-1RA when compared with sodium-glucose cotransporter 2 inhibitors (SGLT-2i) users, prescribed to treat type 2 diabetes in individuals with obesity.
Methods: This is a cohort study combining several population-wide databases and covering a Spanish population of five million inhabitants, including all adults with obesity who initiated treatment with either GLP-1RA or SGLT-2i for type 2 diabetes from 2015 to 2021. To estimate the comparative effect of GLP-1RA on the risk of SIS, we employed a new user, active comparator design and we carried out multivariable Cox regression modelling with inverse probability of treatment weighting (IPTW) based on propensity scores. We performed several stratified and sensitivity analyses.
Results: We included 3040 patients initiating treatment with GLP-1RA and 11,627 with SGLT-2i. When compared with patients treated with SGLT-2i, those in the GLP-1RA group were younger (55 vs 60 years old, p<0.001), had more anxiety (49.4% vs 41.5%, p<0.001), sleep disorders (43.2% vs 34.1%, p<0.001) and depression (24.4% vs 19.0%, p<0.001), and were more obese (35.1% of individuals with BMI ≥40 vs 15.1%, p<0.001). After propensity score weighting, standardised mean differences between groups were <0.1 for all covariates, showing adequate balance between groups at baseline after adjustment. In the main per-protocol analyses we found no evidence that GLP-1RA increased the incidence of SIS (HR 1.04; 95% CI 0.35, 3.14). Intention-to-treat analyses resulted in an HR of 1.36 (95% CI 0.51, 3.61). In analyses excluding individuals with no BMI information and using imputation for BMI missing values, respective HRs were 0.89 (95% CI 0.26, 3.14) and 1.29 (95% CI 0.42, 3.92). Stratified analyses showed no differences between subgroups.
Conclusions/interpretation: Our findings do not support an increased risk of SIS when taking GLP-1RA in individuals with type 2 diabetes and obesity; however, the rarity of SIS events and the wide uncertainty of effect size (although null, effect may be compatible with a risk as high as threefold) calls for a cautious interpretation of our results. Further studies, including final evaluations from regulatory bodies, are called for to discard a causal link between GLP-1RA and suicidality.
Aims/hypothesis: It is unclear whether kidney transplant candidates with diabetes have equitable transplantation opportunities or have divergent survival probabilities stratified by kidney replacement therapy. The aim of this study was to investigate these two issues using national transplant registry data in the UK.
Methods: A cohort study was undertaken of prospectively collected registry data of all wait-listed people with kidney failure receiving dialysis in the UK. All people listed for their first kidney-alone transplant between 2000 and 2019 were included. Stratification was done for cause of kidney failure. Primary outcome was all-cause mortality. Time-to-death from listing was analysed using adjusted non-proportional hazard Cox regression models, with transplantation handled as a time-dependent covariate.
Results: A total of 47,917 wait-listed people with kidney failure formed the total study cohort, of whom 6594 (13.8%) had diabetes classified as cause of kidney failure. People with kidney failure with diabetes comprised 27.6% of the cohort (n=3681/13,359) that did not proceed to transplantation vs only 8.4% (n=2913/34,558) of the cohort that received a transplant (p<0.001). Kidney transplant candidates with diabetes were more likely to be older, of male sex and of ethnic minority background compared with those without diabetes. In an adjusted analysis, compared with remaining on dialysis, any kidney transplant provided survival benefit for wait-listed kidney transplant candidates regardless of diabetes as cause of kidney failure (RR 0.26 [95% CI 0.25, 0.27], p<0.001).
Conclusions/interpretation: Kidney transplant candidates with diabetes have a lower chance of transplantation despite better survival after kidney transplantation vs remaining on dialysis. The reasons for this require further investigation to ensure equal transplantation opportunities.
Internationally, governments and scientists are bound by legal and treaty rights when working with Indigenous nations. These rights include the right of Indigenous people to control the conduct of science with Indigenous nations. Unfortunately, in some cases, individual scientists and scientific teams working with biological and genetic data collected from Indigenous people have not respected these international rights. Here, we argue that the scientific community should understand and acknowledge the historical harms experienced by Indigenous people under the veil of scientific progress (truth) and implement existing standards for ethical conduct of research and sovereign control of data collected within Indigenous communities (reconciliation). Specifically, we outline the rationale for why scientists, scientific journals and research integrity and institutional review boards/ethics committees should adopt, and be held accountable for upholding, current international standards of Indigenous data sovereignty and ethical use of Indigenous biological samples.
We assessed the impact of initiating intermittently scanned continuous glucose monitoring (isCGM) compared with capillary blood glucose monitoring (BGM) on HbA1c levels and hospitalisations for diabetes-related complications in adults with insulin-treated type 2 diabetes in Sweden.
This retrospective comparative cohort study included adults with type 2 diabetes who had a National Diabetes Register initiation date for isCGM after 1 June 2017. Prescribed Drug Register records identified subgroups treated with multiple daily insulin injections (T2D-MDI) or basal insulin (T2D-B), with or without other glucose-lowering drugs. The National Patient Register provided data on hospitalisation rates.
We identified 2876 adults in the T2D-MDI group and 2292 in the T2D-B group with an isCGM index date after 1 June 2017, matched with 33,584 and 43,424 BGM control participants, respectively. The baseline-adjusted difference in the change in mean HbA1c for isCGM users vs BGM control participants in the T2D-MDI cohort was −3.7 mmol/mol (−0.34%) at 6 months, and this was maintained at 24 months. The baseline-adjusted difference in the change in HbA1c for isCGM users vs BGM control participants in the T2D-B cohort was −3.5 mmol/mol (−0.32%) at 6 months, and this was also maintained at 24 months. Compared with BGM control participants, isCGM users in the T2D-MDI cohort had a significantly lower RR of admission for severe hypoglycaemia (0.51; 95% CI 0.27, 0.95), stroke (0.54; 95% CI 0.39, 0.73), acute non-fatal myocardial infarction (0.75; 95% CI 0.57, 0.99) or hospitalisation for any reason (0.84; 95% CI 0.77, 0.90). isCGM users in the T2D-B cohort had a lower RR of admission for heart failure (0.63; 95% CI 0.46, 0.87) or hospitalisation for any reason (0.76; 95% CI 0.69, 0.84).
This study shows that Swedish adults with type 2 diabetes on insulin who are using isCGM have a significantly reduced HbA1c and fewer hospital admissions for diabetes-related complications compared with BGM control participants.