Study finds diabetes drug may prevent, slow kidney disease

About 30 million Americans and more than 420 million people worldwide have diabetes, and most cases are Type 2, the kind tied to obesity. This can damage the kidneys over time, causing disease and ultimately, failure.

kidney disease, kidney failure, heart disease, diabetes — In recent years, several studies have found that Invokana and some similar drugs may stall or prevent kidney failure. (Photo: Getty Images/Thinkstock)

A drug that’s used to help control blood sugar in people with diabetes has now been shown to help prevent or slow kidney disease, which causes millions of deaths each year and requires hundreds of thousands of people to use dialysis to stay alive. Doctors say it’s hard to overstate the importance of this study, and what it means for curbing this problem, which is growing because of the obesity epidemic.