In conversation with... Beat-DKD and Hypo-Resolve

One complication of diabetes is hypoglycaemia, which happens when blood glucose levels drop. The condition can lead to cognitive decline, fainting episodes, cardiovascular events and even death. Not a lot is known about hypoglycaemia and its impact on quality of life or why it can lead to cardiovascular events. Hypo-Resolve helped to narrow that gap in understanding, by investigating the mechanisms underlying the association of hyperglycaemia with CVD, and also by examining the psychological impact of hypoglycaemia on diabetes patients and their families. An official Qualification Advice was obtained from the European Medicines Agency regarding a new model of assessing hypoglycaemia-related quality of life that was developed by the project.

Another complication is diabetic kidney disease, which is the most common form of kidney disease and is the leading cause of end-stage renal disease. At present there are no effective means to prevent or cure DKD, and current diagnosis methods are largely inaccurate and not very useful for predicting disease outcome and choice of therapy.

The BEAT-DKD project explored the potential of urine and plasma as sources of kidney biomarkers, which could indicate what stage of DKD a person has, and predict if a person will respond to a particular drug. Four biomarkers predicting the response to an endothelin receptor antagonist were discovered by the project.