Jardiance 10 mg is a once-daily tablet used to treat type 2 diabetes, heart failure, and chronic kidney disease. It belongs to a class of medications called SGLT2 inhibitors, and its uses have expanded significantly since it first came to market as a diabetes drug. The FDA now approves it for four distinct purposes, making it one of the more versatile medications in cardiology, endocrinology, and nephrology.
FDA-Approved Uses
Jardiance (empagliflozin) at the 10 mg dose is approved for the following:
- Type 2 diabetes: Alongside diet and exercise, it helps lower blood sugar in adults and children aged 10 and older with type 2 diabetes.
- Heart failure: It reduces the risk of cardiovascular death and hospitalization in adults with heart failure, regardless of whether they also have diabetes.
- Chronic kidney disease: It slows kidney disease progression, reduces the risk of kidney failure, and lowers the chance of cardiovascular death in adults with CKD at risk of getting worse.
- Cardiovascular protection in diabetes: For adults with type 2 diabetes who already have established heart disease, it reduces the risk of cardiovascular death.
That last point is worth highlighting. Jardiance was one of the first diabetes drugs shown to actually reduce the risk of dying from heart disease, not just lower blood sugar. That finding reshaped how doctors think about diabetes treatment.
How Jardiance Works
Your kidneys filter glucose out of your blood, then normally reabsorb almost all of it back into the bloodstream. A protein called SGLT2, located in the kidney’s filtering tubes, handles about 97% of that reabsorption. Jardiance blocks this protein, so instead of reclaiming all that glucose, your body passes it out through urine. The result is lower blood sugar without relying on insulin.
But the kidney effects go beyond sugar. By blocking SGLT2, Jardiance also increases sodium excretion, which lowers blood pressure and reduces the workload on your heart. It corrects a process called hyperfiltration, where the kidneys are working too hard and damaging themselves over time. It also reduces inflammation and oxidative stress in blood vessels and kidney tissue, which helps explain why the drug protects organs even in people who don’t have diabetes.
Heart Failure Benefits
Two large clinical trials tested Jardiance in heart failure patients. In people with reduced heart pumping ability (the EMPEROR-Reduced trial), 19.4% of those taking Jardiance experienced cardiovascular death or hospitalization for heart failure, compared to 24.7% on placebo. That’s a 25% relative reduction in risk. Hospitalizations alone dropped from 18.3% to 13.2%.
In patients whose hearts pumped normally but still had heart failure symptoms (the EMPEROR-Preserved trial), Jardiance reduced the combined risk of cardiovascular death or hospitalization by 21%. Hospitalization for heart failure specifically fell from 11.8% to 8.6%, a 29% relative reduction. This was a particularly significant finding because very few treatments had previously shown clear benefits for this type of heart failure.
Kidney Disease Protection
A large meta-analysis of individual patient data found that Jardiance reduced the risk of kidney disease progression by 30% and kidney failure by 34% compared to placebo. Perhaps most striking, it slowed the annual rate of kidney function decline by 64%. For people with diabetes, the slowing was even greater at 74%. Even in people without diabetes who had low levels of protein in their urine, Jardiance still slowed kidney decline by 47%.
These numbers matter because chronic kidney disease typically progresses in one direction. Slowing that decline by more than half can mean years of preserved kidney function and potentially avoiding dialysis.
Secondary Benefits
Beyond its primary uses, Jardiance produces a few additional effects that patients often notice. Because you’re excreting glucose (and the calories it carries) through urine, modest weight loss is common, typically up to about 10 pounds. Blood pressure also tends to drop slightly, a natural consequence of increased sodium and fluid excretion through the kidneys. Neither of these is the primary reason for prescribing it, but both are welcome side effects for many patients.
Common Side Effects
The most notable side effect is an increased risk of genital yeast infections. In clinical trials, about 4.1% of people taking Jardiance 10 mg developed genital fungal infections, compared to 0.9% on placebo. Women were more affected, with rates of 5.4% on the 10 mg dose versus 1.5% on placebo. Men also saw higher rates (3.1% versus 0.4%). This makes sense because extra glucose in the urinary tract creates a friendlier environment for yeast.
Urinary tract infections were slightly more common as well: 9.3% on Jardiance 10 mg versus 7.6% on placebo. The difference was more pronounced in women (18.4% versus 16.6%) than in men (3.6% versus 3.2%).
A rare but serious concern is ketoacidosis, a condition where the blood becomes dangerously acidic. What makes this especially tricky with Jardiance is that it can occur even when blood sugar levels look normal or only mildly elevated, below 250 mg/dL. In typical diabetic ketoacidosis, blood sugar is usually very high, so patients and even clinicians may not recognize the condition right away. Symptoms to watch for include nausea, vomiting, abdominal pain, fatigue, and difficulty breathing.
Kidney Function Requirements
Because Jardiance works through the kidneys, it has limits based on how well your kidneys are functioning. It should not be started if your estimated kidney filtration rate (eGFR) is below 45, and it’s contraindicated entirely if your eGFR is below 30 or if you’re on dialysis. If kidney function drops below 45 while you’re already taking it, your doctor will typically discontinue it.
How to Take It
Jardiance 10 mg is taken once daily in the morning, with or without food. For type 2 diabetes, 10 mg is the starting dose, and your doctor may increase it to 25 mg if additional blood sugar control is needed. For heart failure and chronic kidney disease, 10 mg is the standard dose.