A class of type 2 diabetes drugs carries significant cardiovascular risks

A class of oral drugs used to treat type 2 diabetes may make heart failure worse, according to an editorial published online in Heart Wednesday by two Wake Forest University School of Medicine faculty members. "We strongly recommend restrictions in the use of thiazolidinediones (the class of drugs) and question the rationale for leaving rosiglitazone on the market," write Sonal Singh, M.D., M.P.H., assistant professor of internal medicine, and Curt D. Furberg, M.D., Ph.D., professor of public health sciences. Rosiglitazone and pioglitazone are the two major thiazolidinediones. In the editorial Singh and Furberg say, "At this time, justification for use of thiazolidinediones is very weak to non-existent."
Read article at physorg.com

Doctors demand freeze on use of diabetes drug for heart patients

SCOTTISH doctors have said there is "no defence" for the use of a widely prescribed diabetes drug after warnings that it should not be used in patients with heart problems, The Scotsman can reveal. The consultants, who work in the NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde area, recommend no new patients are given Avandia - also known as rosiglitazone.
Read article in The Scotsman (Scotland/UK

A commonly-prescribed drug, Avandia, for type 2 diabetes, may increase the risk of brittle bone disease, say researchers.

Diabetes drug link to weak bones

Extract from BBC News:

"A commonly-prescribed drug for type 2 diabetics may increase the risk of brittle bone disease, say researchers.

Tests on mice found that rosiglitazone (Avandia), which is used to boost the effects of insulin, could be interfering with new bone formation."

Diabetes drugs, Avandia (rosiglitazone) and Actos (pioglitazone), are causing widespread heart failure.

Scientists link diabetes drugs to heart failure - Guardian

Extract:

"Two of the most commonly used drugs for diabetes, which were taken by hundreds of thousands of mostly overweight people in the UK last year, are causing widespread heart failure, scientists warn today.

Use of the drugs, prescribed by doctors for type II diabetes, has doubled in the past three years as a consequence of a growing obesity problem. Last year 1.8m prescriptions were written across the UK, which scientists say equates to several hundred thousand patients taking the drugs which are recommended for use across the NHS by the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (Nice).

But researchers today call on Nice to think again, revealing that as many as one in every 50 patients taking the drugs Avandia (rosiglitazone) and Actos (pioglitazone) over a period of 26 months will have to be hospitalised for heart failure.

The class of drugs, they say in the journal Diabetes Care, doubles the risk of heart failure, and even those with no history of heart problems are affected.

"This means that the diabetes drugs could have caused thousands of additional cases of heart failure, creating a substantial burden on hard-pressed NHS services," said Dr Yoon Loke, a clinical pharmacologist at the University of East Anglia who carried out the research with Wake Forest University in the US. "I think Nice should re-evaluate their decision to recommend these diabetes drugs."

Concerns about the safety of the drug were triggered in May when a leading US cardiologist published evidence of a link to heart attacks and death. The manufacturers strongly contested his study in the New England Journal of Medicine.

But today's evidence will add urgency to a special meeting of the US regulator, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) which was already scheduled for Monday to discuss the safety of the drugs which are taken by 7 million people in the US.

Global sales of Avandia, made by the British company GlaxoSmithKline, have dropped by 22% in the US since the heart attack data was published in May, but are still worth £349m.
However, in Europe sales have continued to grow by 20% to £63m. Avandia is the company's second best-selling drug."

Most prescription drugs are harmful so only take them if it is really necessary, and always check what side-effects are listed for them. - But bear in mind that not all side-effects are listed...)o:

There is no need at all for overweight people ever to take 'slimming' drugs and dieting is ALWAYS harmful. - Obesity is caused by fluid retention not by overeating, and fluid retention can easily be reduced by eating less salt/sodium, so avoid eating salt and food containing salt.

You can lower your risk of heart attack and stroke, as well as many other illnesses, and lose weight by eating less salt! Go on! - Try it! - You will feel so much better!
How to Lose weight!

See my website http://www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk/.html
(The site does not sell anything and has no banners or sponsors or adverts - just helpful information.)

Read my Mensa article on Obesity and the Salt Connection

See Sodium in foods and Associated health conditions

I can be contacted via my website if you need my further help. My help is free...

Glaxo takes out newspaper ads to defend Avandia

Glaxo defends Avandia with newspaper ads

Extract:

"The ads, which appeared in newspapers such as The New York Times, The Washington Post, USA Today and The Wall Street Journal, take the form of a letter to Avandia patients signed by Ronald Krall, chief medical officer of the world's second-largest drugmaker.

The unusual step comes a day before a scheduled U.S. congressional hearing on the Food and Drug Administrations role in evaluating the safety of Avandia, and a day after the first solid data became available on the medicine's eroding prescription numbers.

Avandia, known chemically as rosiglitazone, came under fire last month after an analysis in the New England Journal of Medicine suggested the type 2 diabetes treatment might raise the risk of heart attack by 43 percent and of cardiac-related death by 64 percent. The analysis, by a top U.S. cardiologist, Steven Nissen, drew on pooled data from 42 trials involving nearly 28,000 patients.

Glaxo has been on the defensive ever since, putting out news releases criticizing the so-called meta-analysis and methods used in reaching its conclusions and defending the safety of the $3.2 billion (1.6 billion pound) a year product; trotting out executives to discuss Avandia safety with the media; and publishing a letter in the Lancet medical journal saying large studies showed Avandia's cardiovascular safety to be comparable to other widely used diabetes treatments."

A little more about the dangers of the prescription drug, Avandia.

Warning on diabetes drug could be a replay of Vioxx - American Medical News

Extracts:

"Congress is urged to take steps to help avoid future drug safety issues as it moves toward passage of an FDA bill."

"The warning was posted by Steven Nissen, MD, chair of the Cleveland Clinic's Dept. of Cardiovascular Medicine, who analyzed 42 trials of rosiglitazone, which was approved by the FDA in 1999. Dr. Nissen and Cleveland Clinic statistician Kathy Wolski, MPH, found that the use of the drug was associated with an increased risk of heart attack and cardiovascular death -- by 43% and 64% respectively -- compared with placebo.

The findings represent a particular health concern, Dr. Nissen said, because more than 65% of deaths in diabetic patients are attributed to heart disease."

You can reduce both the risk of and the severity of type 2 diabetes, heart attack, heart disease, obesity and many other chronic, disabling diseases and health conditions by eating less salt.

Lose weight by eating less salt! Go on! - Try it! - You will feel so much better!
See my website www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk
(The site does not sell anything and has no banners or sponsors or adverts - just helpful information.)

Avandia is suspected of increasing risk of heart attacks.

Health alert over diabetes drug linked to heart risks - Guardian

Extract:

"A review of the safety of a diabetes drug used by millions of patients was launched in America last night after a study linked it to an increased risk of heart attacks.

Patients using Avandia, the brand name given by GlaxoSmithKline to rosiglitazone, ran a 45% higher risk of a heart attack than those using a placebo or alternative treatment, according to the results of the study published in a leading medical journal.

The US regulator the food and drug administration (FDA) responded by issuing a formal alert to doctors. And congressional leaders in Washington announced that the House oversight committee would hold hearings on GSK's handling of the drug next month.

GSK, the UK's leading pharmaceutical company, disputed the study's findings, arguing it was based on "incomplete evidence and a methodology that the author admits has significant limitations".

Avandia has been taken by more than 6 million people worldwide since it was licensed eight years ago. The drug is one of a group that lower blood glucose levels for people with type 2 diabetes - the late onset form of the disease which is linked to obesity. The FDA warned doctors to be aware of the study published online by the New England Journal of Medicine linking it to heart disease. "

Pharmaceuticals usually carry risks...)o: - You can reduce your risk of developing type 2 diabetes by eating less salt/sodium. And if you already have type 2 diabetes, you can improve your condition by eating less salt/sodium.

Lose weight by eating less salt! Go on! - Try it! - You will feel so much better!
See my website www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk
(The site does not sell anything and has no banners or sponsors or adverts - just helpful information.)

A drug initially hailed by doctors as giving new hope to people who are at risk of diabetes should not be prescribed to them after all

Changes in lifestyle hold key to reducing risk of diabetes - Independent

This article contains such a lot of sense that ~I have quoted extensively from it. - It is rare to read such good sense on the subject of prescription drugs.

Extracts:

"A drug initially hailed by doctors as giving new hope to people who are at risk of diabetes should not be prescribed to them after all, experts will say today.

The drug, rosiglitazone, sharply reduces the chance of developing diabetes when given to people at high risk, according to the results of an international trial published last year.

But three American professors writing in the British Medical Journal say taking a prescription drug to prevent the condition cannot be justified when lifestyle changes can achieve the same effect.

Professor Victor Montori of the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, New York, and colleagues say the "aggressive marketing of rosiglitazone as a preventive therapy" following last year's trial is an example of how healthy people are being turned into patients through the medicalisation of everyday life.

Multinational pharmaceutical companies with an interest in promoting new drugs are increasingly identifying "pre-disease states" which require treatment before people fall ill, they say."

"Speaking yesterday, Professor Montori said: "Our main concern is the idea that you can turn people into patients very early by getting them to take pills. Diabetes is not a disease you feel you have, it is a disease your doctor tells you that you have. All the drugs do is prevent your blood sugar rising to a level that triggers the diagnosis."

"You end up with patients taking more drugs who are then at risk of getting side effects and who have to go for more check-ups. You have become a patient where previously you were at risk of becoming one."

Heart disease, obesity, high cholesterol and high blood pressure were other conditions where drugs were prescribed instead of lifestyle changes."

""There is a tendency then to identify obesity as a condition that needs treating and if you keep going you get to a point where being alive and eating is a risk factor. We should be very cautious about the medicalisation of people who feel healthy and then through treatment become patients."

"Rosiglitazone, marketed in the UK as Avandia by Glaxosmithkline, is an established treatment for people with diabetes, but last year's trial, run in 21 countries and published in The Lancet in September, was aimed at establishing its role in preventing the condition. The results showed that for every 1,000 people at high risk treated with the drug for three years, it would protect 144 who would otherwise have developed the condition.

But most of these people would be unaware of their condition, would not experience any immediate benefit, would require more visits to the doctor, and would have their anxiety levels raised by the diagnosis.

The authors say in the BMJ: "Even under the most optimistic assumptions, patients offered rosiglitazone for prevention will end up taking more pills. Thus neither patients who value preventing diabetes in order to avoid taking drugs, nor a society concerned with cost minimisation, will benefit from early use of rosiglitazone.""

To reduce the risk of developing type 2 diabetes, obesity, heart disease, high blood pressure and high cholesterol problems completely safely, stop eating salt and salty food, and do your damnedest to avoid taking prescribed drugs unless they are strictly necessary. - See http://www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk/conditions.html and http://www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk/steroids.html

Lose weight by eating less salt! Go on! - Try it! - You will feel so much better!
See my website www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk
(The site does not sell anything and has no banners or sponsors or adverts - just helpful information.)