Clinical Research Directory

Diabetic Nephropathy in People With Diabetes. Prevalence and Predictive Factors

a prospective, observational, multi-center study with a cohort of 300 patients with Type 2 diabetes and macroalbuminuria. Prospectively we will collect kidney biopsies and analyse the transciptome of the kidney tissue and other biomarkers from blood, faeces, urine, proteomic- and metabolomic profiles and DNA-variants. Thereby we hope to be able to discover molecular and clinical profiles, that can help us in the diagnosis of DKD, and to identify different risks of progression that can benefit from different forms of personalized treatment.

Digital Individualized and Collaborative Treatment of T2D in General Practice Based on Decision Aid

The purpose of this project is to improve life of patients with type 2 diabetes through an IT-supported lifestyle and treatment intervention. The intervention is based on combining and adapting existing and effective elements into the IT system of the general practitioner. In this way we will integrate specialist supervised treatment in general practice, individual patient coaching, and improved information exchange and data mining. The DICTA intervention consists of two integrated components: a patient-directed eHealth lifestyle coaching program delivered via the LIVA application, and a clinician-directed CDS tool embedded into the EPJ system. 1. eHealth lifestyle coaching: Individuals with T2D in the intervention group will receive individualized digital coaching from a health coach through the LIVA application. PROs are shared with GPs and health staff via the EPJ, enabling tailored, data-driven lifestyle support. 2. CDS: GPs receive real-time, individualized, algorithm-based pharmacological treatment recommendations for managing T2D, hypertension, and hypercholesterolemia, as appropriate. This is expected to facilitate use, assure individually tailored solutions, optimize treatment effects, and strengthen patient engagement. The study is a randomized controlled trial (RCT). It will include 400 patients with newly diagnosed type 2 diabetes. The patients will receive either treatment based on the intervention or usual care. After one year, we will assess quality of life and cardiovascular risk factors in both groups and evaluate if one group has improved management of their type 2 diabetes compared to the other. If the intervention proves effective, implementation on a national scale is highly feasible, and the intervention could probably be adapted to other lifestyle-related chronic diseases in Denmark and in other countries.

RESET System Pivotal Trial (Rev F)

A Randomized, Multi-Center, Pivotal Efficacy and Safety Study Evaluating the RESET System for Glycemic Improvement in Patients with Inadequately Controlled Type 2 Diabetes and Obesity, the STEP-1 Study. A multi-center, double-blinded, randomized, sham-controlled trial to evaluate the safety and effectiveness of the RESET System plus moderate intensity lifestyle and dietary counseling compliant with 2024 ADA Standard of Care as compared to a sham control receiving moderate intensity lifestyle and dietary counseling. Both the treatment and sham group will practice medical management compliant with STEP-1 Study Guidelines. Patients will be randomized 3 (RESET):1 (Sham).

Intermittent Fasting to Improve Insulin Secretion

Type 2 diabetes (T2D) mellitus is a challenge for health care systems as the numbers increases constantly. In 2014, 422 million people had been living with diabetes worldwide. The absolute numbers of people with prediabetes have also grown substantially over 25 years worldwide. In Germany, about 10% of the population has T2D and another 21 % of the population has prediabetes.Overall, 16% of all deaths in Germany are attributable to type 2 diabetes. Macro- and microvascular complications of diabetes imply a significant threat for the patients and are already present in the prediabetic state. Short term and long term complications, the burden of treatment, and reduced quality of life are major burdens of the disease. Accumulating data indicate that currently recommended therapeutic diet regimens in patients with obesity and diabetes are not sustainable on the long term. Novel concepts are therefore urgently needed. T2D occurs when insulin secretion from pancreatic beta-cells cannot sufficiently be increased to compensate for insulin resistance. Causes of beta-cell dysfunction are heterogeneous. In addition, the most important determinants of diabetes remission are the extend of weight loss and restoration of beta-cell function. In the course of diabetes progression, the inability to recover insulin secretion might identify the state of no return to normal glucose tolerance. It is therefore crucial to improve insulin secretion in treatment and prevention of diabetes. Up to now lifestyle intervention trials in prediabetes or pharmacological intervention trials in diabetes did not show improvement of insulin secretion after intervention. However, one recent small human trial shows that intermittent fasting (early time restricted fasting) is able to improve insulin secretion.Currently, there are no trials that examine the effect of intermittent fasting in individuals with a broad range of impaired glucose metabolism (from prediabetes to diabetes). Recently novel subtypes of diabetes and prediabetes with high risk for the early manifestation of diabetes complications have been identified. Currently, prevention strategies for this high risk individuals have not been examined yet. We will study for the first time the effectiveness of 4 weeks intermittent fasting on changes in insulin secretion capacity in subphenotypes of diabetes and in prediabetes.

Impact of Obesity, Chronic Kidney Disease and Type 2 Diabetes on Human Urinary Stem Cells

Obesity is at risk for the development of chronic kidney disease but the involved mechanisms are not known (Navarro et al. 2015). Establishing the link between obesity and kidney damage is difficult. Indeed, kidney function measurement lacks precision in obese people (Lemoine et al. 2014) and requires expensive methods such as measurement of 99mTc-DTPA clearance. Biopsies are too invasive for the detection of emerging kidney damage or for the following of the kidney function. Therefore new tools are required for the early identification of at risk individuals for the kidney damage complication. Mesenchymal stem cells may represent such a relevant tool. These cells are present in a large number of organs, including kidney (Costa et al. 2020). In addition to be differentiated cells progenitors (Dominici et al. 2006), they also support immunosuppressive, anti-fibrotic and pro-angiogenic functions that have been used for the treatment of kidney fibrosis (Usunier et al. 2014). Therefore, mesenchymal stem cells contribute to tissue homeostasis and their alterations may reflect organ dysfunctions. Indeed, mesenchymal stem cells from obese adipose tissue lose their immunosuppressive (Serena et al. 2016) and differentiation (Gustafson et al. 2009) functions and contribute to fibrosis (Keophiphath et al. 2009) and inflammation (Lee et al. 2010; Gustafson, Nerstedt, et Smith 2019). It is thus probable that kidney dysfunctions are associated with functional alterations of kidney mesenchymal stem cells. The collection of mesenchymal stem cells from kidney can easily be performed from urine and next cultivated for amplification. They are called urine stem cells (USC). From our experience with obese mouse adipose stem cells, we observed that functional changes of stem cells preceded adipose tissue dysfunctions. Functional signatures of mesenchymal stem cells are thus representative of changes occuring in the function of the tissue notably in answer to obesity. These features could be used to identify obese people presenting ongoing alterations of kidney function, before clinical manifestations of kidney dysfunction. Because kidney mesenchymal stem cells are easy to isolate from urine, their collection is compatible with the follow up of patients and can be applied to a large number of individuals, including the younger. USC could represent a valuable tool to detect progression towards kidney damage. In this project we plan to analyse USC alterations induced by obesity and to identify signatures associated with the progression towards kidney damage and type 2 diabetes. The goal is to evaluate USC as potential marker for the non invasive monitoring of patients in answer to a need that is not achieved by the present available approaches.