Emmy Award winner, ‘Fame’ star Debbie Allen joins NKF to help detect, manage diabetes
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Emmy Award- and Golden Globe-winning actress Debbie Allen is teaming up with the National Kidney Foundation on an education campaign aimed at helping people with type 2 diabetes lower their risk of developing chronic kidney disease.
Allen, a producer, director and choreographer, known for her role in the “Fame” television series and her skills as a professional dancer, has a family history of diabetes and was recently diagnosed with pre-diabetes.
“Despite all my years of dancing and being careful about my diet to reduce my chance of getting type 2 diabetes, I was recently diagnosed with pre-diabetes,” Allen said in a press release. “From my dad, grandfather, aunts and uncle, this disease has shaped my family, so I know it puts me at an increased risk for chronic kidney disease.”
She is joining the NKF’s “Are You the 33%?” campaign as its celebrity spokesperson during National Kidney Month and to honor World Kidney Day on March 11. Allen will hold a virtual fireside chat on that day to discuss her family connection with diabetes.
“Are You the 33%?” focuses on the connection between type 2 diabetes and CKD. The campaign, which began in March 2020, states that one in three people are at risk nationwide for CKD.
People can take a 1-minute quiz at MinuteForYourKidneys.org to get more information on their condition, the NKF said.
“With 33 [%] of all adults in the United States at risk for developing kidney disease, it’s like saying one out of every three dancers, like Debbie Allen, in a performance is at risk,” Joseph Vassalotti, MD, chief medical officer of the NKF, said. “We urgently need to transform understanding risk into action to protect kidney health.”
The NKF teamed up with Bayer when it began its kidney health campaign last year. Vassalotti told Healio Nephrology that new drug development has the potential to allow nephrologists to offer both cardiac and kidney protection in patients like Allen, who is in the early stages of diabetes.
“Think about the public health challenge with [type 2 diabetes] T2D,” Vassalotti said. “The best chance for prevention with T2D kidney disease at this population level is with new kidney and cardioprotective medications.
“Nephrologists used to say they only had one tool available; now, we have the chance to slow kidney disease progression and make it cardioprotective,” he said.
Bayer is currently conducting the FIGARO- (Diabetic Kidney Disease) DKD trial, which is investigating the efficacy and safety of the investigational agent finerenone vs. placebo on the reduction of cardiovascular morbidity and mortality in approximately 7,400 patients with CKD and type 2 diabetes across 47 countries.
Last fall, Bayer reported results from the phase 3 FIDELIO-DKD study, which demonstrated the drug finerenone was effective in delaying the progression of CKD and reducing the risk for cardiovascular events in patients with type 2 diabetes. In January, Bayer received an FDA priority review for finerenone to treat patients with CKD and type 2 diabetes.
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