An international multicenter study, involving the Bellvitge University Hospital and IDIBELL, has shown that the drug semaglutide, designed to treat diabetes and obesity, protects the kidney in obese non-diabetic patients with chronic kidney disease.
The study, called SMART (SeMaglutide and Albuminuria Reduction Trial in obese individuals without diabetes), involved several centers from the Netherlands, Spain, Germany, and Canada, under the coordination of the Department of Pharmacy and Clinical Pharmacology at the University of Groningen.
The work, recently presented at the Kidney Week 2024 Congress of the American Society of Nephrology and simultaneously published in Nature Medicine, has among its lead authors Dr. Josep M. Cruzado, Head of the Nephrology Service at HUB and Head of the Renal Nephrology and Transplantation Research Group at IDIBELL.
There is an interaction between obesity and chronic kidney disease, whose pathophysiological mechanisms are complex. To reduce weight in patients with and without diabetes without inducing hypoglycemia, therapies with antidiabetic drugs and others have been used. However, until now, their specific effect on obese patients with chronic kidney disease was unknown.
In this randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled clinical trial, a total of 125 patients with chronic kidney disease and without diabetes participated. They were randomly assigned to receive either 2.4 mg of semaglutide per week or a placebo.
Spain contributed the most patients to the study. In addition to HUB-IDIBELL, participating centers in Spain included the INCLIVA Health Research Institute at the University Hospital of Valencia and the University of Valencia; the Vall d'Hebron Research Institute (VHIR) and Vall d'Hebron University Hospital; and Ribera Polusa Hospital in Lugo.
Article reference: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41591-024-03327-6