ArticleBMJ open diabetes research & care2019
Empagliflozin reverses obesity and insulin resistance through fat browning and alternative macrophage activation in mice fed a high-fat diet.
Article in BMJ open diabetes research & care, 2019. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 70 papers, 5 of them syntheses that pooled it.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
70 citing papers in PubMed, 5 syntheses or guidelines pooled it, 100 citations in OpenAlex.
- Efficacy of Empagliflozin on Liver Enzymes, Lipid Profile and BMI in Patients With Metabolic Dysfunction-Associated Steatotic Liver Disease (MASLD): A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis.Endocrinology, diabetes & metabolism · 2026Pooled it
- Effect of SGLT2 inhibitors on liver fat content: A meta-analysis.Biomolecules & biomedicine · 2025Pooled it
- Efficacy and Safety of Empagliflozin on Nonalcoholic Fatty Liver Disease: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis.Frontiers in endocrinology · 2022Pooled it
- Pooled it
- Effects of the amount and type of carbohydrates used in type 2 diabetes diets in animal models: A systematic review.PloS one · 2020Pooled it
- Timing-dependent anti-inflammatory effects of empagliflozin in monocyte-derived macrophages from post-myocardial infarct patients with type 2 diabetes.Cardiovascular diabetology · 2026Trial
- The effect of empagliflozin on peripheral microvascular dysfunction in patients with heart failure with preserved ejection fraction.Cardiovascular diabetology · 2025Trial
- Reduction of cardiac adipose tissue volume with short-term empagliflozin treatment in patients with type 2 diabetes: A substudy from the SIMPLE randomized clinical trial.Diabetes, obesity & metabolism · 2023Trial
- Association between serum insulin levels and heart failure-related parameters in patients with type 2 diabetes and heart failure treated with canagliflozin: a post-hoc analysis of the randomized CANDLE trial.Cardiovascular diabetology · 2022 · on this mapTrial
- Review
- Obesity is the culprit behind fatty acid-induced inflammation.Nutrition & metabolism · 2026Review
- The Multiscale Heterogeneity of Adipose Tissue in Health and Disease.Research (Washington, D.C.) · 2026Review
- Glucose metabolic reprogramming in systemic lupus erythematosus and lupus nephritis: theoretical foundations and therapeutic implications.Frontiers in immunology · 2026Review
- Sodium-glucose cotransporter-2 inhibitors and risk of autoimmune rheumatic diseases: population based cohort study.BMJ (Clinical research ed.) · 2025Article
- CTRP6 as a negative regulator of anti-inflammatory M2 macrophage polarization.Immunometabolism (Cobham, Surrey) · 2025Article
- Dapagliflozin ameliorates metabolic and hepatic outcomes in a mouse model of metabolic dysfunction-associated steatotic liver disease and diabetes.Acta diabetologica · 2025Article
- Metabolic and vascular insulin resistance: partners in the pathogenesis of cardiovascular disease in diabetes.American journal of physiology. Heart and circulatory physiology · 2025Review
- Novel insights into the hepatoprotective mechanisms of SGLT2 inhibitor empagliflozin in Zucker diabetic fatty rats.Frontiers in pharmacology · 2025Article
- The Effects of SGLT2 Inhibitors on Blood Pressure and Other Cardiometabolic Risk Factors.International journal of molecular sciences · 2024 · on this mapReview
- Empagliflozin Ameliorates Atrial and Ventricular Remodeling and Arrhythmogenesis in an Overweight Rabbit Model.Acta Cardiologica Sinica · 2024Article
10 more citing papers are in PubMed but not listed here.
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
9 authors at 1 institution in 2 countries.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Objective: We reported previously that empagliflozin-a sodium-glucose cotransporter (SGLT) 2 inhibitor-exhibited preventive effects against obesity. However, it was difficult to extrapolate these results to human subjects. Here, we performed a therapeutic study, which is more relevant to clinical situations in humans, to investigate antiobesity effects of empagliflozin and illustrate the mechanism underlying empagliflozin-mediated enhanced fat browning in obese mice. Research design and methods: After 8 weeks on a high-fat diet (HFD), C57BL/6J mice exhibited obesity, accompanied by insulin resistance and low-grade chronic inflammation. Cohorts of obese mice were continued on the HFD for an additional 8-week treatment period with or without empagliflozin. Results: Treatment with empagliflozin for 8 weeks markedly increased glucose excretion in urine, and suppressed HFD-induced weight gain, insulin resistance and hepatic steatosis. Notably, empagliflozin enhanced oxygen consumption and carbon dioxide production, leading to increased energy expenditure. Consistently, the level of uncoupling protein 1 expression was increased in both brown and white (WAT) adipose tissues of empagliflozin-treated mice. Furthermore, empagliflozin decreased plasma levels of interleukin (IL)-6 and monocyte chemoattractant protein-1, but increased plasma levels of IL-33 and adiponectin in obese mice. Finally, we found that empagliflozin reduced M1-polarized macrophage accumulation, while inducing the anti-inflammatory M2 phenotype of macrophages in the WAT and liver, thereby attenuating obesity-related chronic inflammation. Conclusions: Treatment with empagliflozin attenuated weight gain by increasing energy expenditure and adipose tissue browning, and alleviated obesity-associated inflammation and insulin resistance by alternative macrophage activation in the WAT and liver of obese mice.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.