Christie Ballantyne, MD: Promising Cardiovascular Agents in Diabetes

Type 2 diabetes pharmacology has evolved so significantly in the last decade that the concept of disease management has looked beyond the standard definitions of diabetic care toward multifactorial benefit with a single agent.

But this “tremendous amount of progress,” Christie Ballantyne, MD, explained, has yet to even reach its fullest potential.

In an interview with HCPLive during The Metabolic Institute of America’s (TMIOA) 2021 Heart in Diabetes sessions in New York, NY this weekend, Ballantyne, Director of the Center for Cardiometabolic Disease Prevention at Baylor College of Medicine, discussed the influence of newer cardiovascular prescribing strategy on the potential of cardiometabolic care in patients with type 2 diabetes.

As he explained, cardiovascular treatment guidelines haver evolved to prioritize an “aggressive approach” in lipoprotein and hypertension management, with emphasis on combination therapy.

“Why do we do it? Because it works,” Ballantyne said. “It’s effective. In diabetes, we need to get into it more.”

Ballantyne discussed the potential of bempedoic acid and inclisiran in the management of LDL-C in patients with or without diabetes; the former as an add-on therapy could provide up to 40% reduction in statin-intolerant patients, and the latter could provide PCSK9 inhibition with twice-annual injection therapy.

The expert also shared his own clinic’s strategies toward adopting better cardiometabolic management practices in patients with diabetes, as well as rationale for why implementation of already-available drug classes.

“We don’t have to wait for the new therapies,” Ballantyne said. “We’ve got therapies in our hands right now that are extremely effective.”