Approximately 3 out of 100 people with diabetes will develop heart failure. People with heart failure can have symptoms like breathlessness, tiredness or ankle swelling. These symptoms can reduce quality of life and lead to being admitted to hospital, or in the worst-case scenario fatal consequences.

We are doing this trial to see if a tablet called sotagliflozin, a Sodium-glucose Cotransporter (SGLT) inhibitor, can improve quality of life in people with type 1 diabetes and heart failure. Sotagliflozin has been shown to improve blood sugar control in people with type 1 diabetes , but SGLT inhibitors are more often used in people with type 2 diabetes and at present are not used in people with type 1 diabetes. SGLT inhibitors also help heart and kidney function in people with type 2 diabetes or without diabetes, but we have no evidence yet as to whether they have the same benefits in people with type 1 diabetes.

Previous trials have shown that SGLT inhibitors can reduce the chances of people developing heart failure. They can also improve patients’ quality of life and reduce the chance of people with heart failure being admitted to hospital or dying. But people with type 1 diabetes and heart failure were not in any of the trials carried out with SGLT inhibitors. This means that most guidelines recommend that we don’t give SGLT inhibitors to people with type 1 diabetes and heart failure. We believe that SGLT inhibitors would work just as effectively in people with type 1 diabetes and heart failure as they do in people with type 2 diabetes or those without diabetes.

In this trial we hope to find out if sotagliflozin is effective in improving heart failure symptoms in people with type 1 diabetes.