The Appropriate Blood Pressure Control in Diabetes (ABCD) Trial has been a major research activity of the Colorado Prevention Center for the past 12 years. The study is one of the largest single site studies ever performed, comparing 950 randomized patients. It has been evaluating the role of intensive versus moderate blood pressure lowering in individuals with diabetes.

People who have adult-onset diabetes (type 2) need to manage their disease to prevent severe outcomes such as kidney failure, nerve damage, blindness and cardiovascular morbidity and mortality. Researchers at the Colorado Prevention Center have recently defined the optimum blood pressure level for diabetic patients, which is lower than the recommended level in non-diabetics.

Additionally, the research has compared certain drug therapies and their association with cardiovascular complications in type 2 diabetes. The research at the CPC has identified which drugs (ACE inhibitors) are most effective in preventing these complications in type 2 diabetics.

The initial phase of the study was completed in the summer of 1998. A five-year grant from Novartis Pharmaceuticals will enable research to continue until 2003. The primarily objects of the follow-up study remain unchanged: that intensive lowering of blood pressure will protect persons with diabetes from the ravages of heart disease, kidney disease, eye disease and nerve damage.

In 2001, the Colorado Prevention Center also obtained a large contract to perform a multicenter study of peripheral arterial disease. Peripheral arterial disease affects over 10 million people in the United States, who are at significant risk for cardiovascular morbidity and mortality, as well as circulatory problems, which frequently result in amputation.

The study involves developing new treatments for patients with peripheral arterial diseases to improve their quality of life.

Dr. William Hiatt, president of the Colorado Prevention Center, has a major interest in peripheral arterial disease. In 1998, he was a principal organizer of the Trans-Atlantic Consensus Conference on developing guidelines for studies of the disease.

The Colorado Prevention Center has conducted several other clinical trials to develop new preventive therapies for a variety of disease states, including evaluation of medications to treat blood pressure, high cholesterol and peripheral arterial disease, an influenza vaccination study of the homeless, and a cardiovascular risk screening of the Russian immigrant population of Denver.

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