Protective Role of Sodium-Glucose Co-Transporter 2 Inhibition Against Vascular Complications in Diabetes.

Diabetic micro- and macroangiopathy are devastating vascular complications that could account for disabilities and high mortality rate in patients with diabetes. Indeed, diabetic nephropathy and retinopathy are the leading causes of end-stage renal failure and acquired blindness, respectively, and atherosclerotic cardiovascular diseases (CVD) accounts for about 60% of death in diabetic subjects. As a result, the average life span of diabetic patients is about 10-15 years shorter than that of non-diabetic subjects. Furthermore, tight blood glucose control might have no more than a marginal impact on CVD in general and on all-cause mortality in particular in diabetes. Therefore, therapeutic strategies that target vascular complications in diabetes need to be developed. Recently, selective inhibition of sodium-glucose co-transporter 2 (SGLT2) has been proposed as a potential therapeutic target for the treatment of patients with diabetes because of low risk of hypoglycemia and no weight gain. Because 90% of glucose filtered by the glomerulus is reabsorbed by a low-affinity/high-capacity SGLT2 expressed in the S1 and S2 segments of the proximal tubule, blockade of SGLT2 promotes urinary glucose excretion and as a result improves hyperglycemia in an insulin-independent manner. Moreover, we have shown that SGLT2-mediated glucose overload to tubular cells could elicit inflammatory and pro-apoptotic reactions in this cell, being directly involved in diabetic nephropathy. In addition, several clinical studies have also shown that SGLT2 inhibitors could reduce blood pressure, body weight, and serum uric acid levels and ameliorate cardiovascular risk in patients with diabetes. This review summarizes the pathophysiological role of SGLT2 in vascular complications in diabetes and its potential therapeutic interventions.