Heart Disease risk increases with Poor Response to Anti-anemia Drug
By Mayuri, Gaea News NetworkThursday, December 30, 2010
NEW YORK (GaeaTimes.com) — Scientists have claimed that patients ith diabetes, kidney disease and anemia who don’t respond to treatment with an anti-anemia drug have a higher risk of cardiovascular disease or death.
This finding suggests that lowering the blood iron levels in the body of the affected patients may reduce the risk. The results were an unexpected finding of a study on darbepoetin alpha, which stimulates the production of red blood cells to counteract anemia.
The study showed that darbepoetin alpha works no better than a placebo for improving cardiovascular and kidney outcomes, but it did lower the risk for blood transfusion and resulted in modest improvement in patient-reported outcomes among people with diabetes, kidney disease and anemia.
