Empagliflozin had no overall effect on right-heart function
Right-heart wall shortening differed by −0.8 percentage points versus placebo after 12 weeks, with the range of likely values including no difference.
Our read
Interventions- Studied:
- Randomized trial in 160 patients with heart failure and reduced ejection fraction, against placebo (Double-blind, placebo-controlled, registered NCT03198585)
- What changed:
- Right-heart function did not differ with empagliflozin versus placebo; the strain treatment effect was −0.8%
- The catch:
- Echocardiography is less accurate and reproducible than cardiac MRI for measuring right-heart function
- In the record:
- The 97th paper on empagliflozin with results in people; 478 on record in all.
Editor of record: Boris Djordjevic · AgingResearch.News
In a randomized trial, 160 people with stable heart failure had ultrasound data for this exploratory analysis. Their average age was 64, and 86% were men. Their left pumping chamber expelled 40% or less of its blood per beat. Participants received empagliflozin, 10 milligrams daily, or placebo for 12 weeks alongside recommended care.
Researchers measured how much the right pumping chamber’s outer wall shortened during a heartbeat. Empagliflozin had no significant effect on this measure overall. However, the third of participants with the poorest initial measurements showed improved shortening compared with placebo. No significant benefit appeared in the other two thirds. Two other ultrasound measures of right-heart function also showed no significant treatment effects.
Why it matters
Heart failure is a disease associated with aging. This analysis addressed whether empagliflozin’s known benefits in heart failure extend to how the right pumping chamber contracts.
Caveats
Researchers chose these exploratory measurements after the trial ended but before treatment assignments were revealed, and analyzed only participants with complete ultrasound data. Participants were stable and mostly men, with recent heart-failure hospitalization and uncorrected severe valve disease excluded; the supplied abstract and excerpts do not report adverse events.
From the paper
- Limitation
The results of this exploratory substudy should be regarded as hypothesis-generating.
Quoted word for word from the full text on PubMed Central.
- Empagliflozin
- Heart failure with reduced ejection fraction
- Left ventricular ejection fraction
- New York Heart Association functional class
- Right ventricular free wall strain
- Humans
Empagliflozin is part of Bryan Johnson's Blueprint
The paper
University of Southern Denmark
ESC Heart Failure, Feb 19, 2026, Open access
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