Diabetes Drug Warning

A recent research revealed that people taking certain diabetes drug have more chances of acquiring heart failure. The drug knows as Rosiglitazone under the brand name Avandia is usually given to patient with type 2 diabetes. Rosiglitazone is categorized under the group of drug know as glitazones which was introduced to the market in 2000. Similar to other glitazones, it is used when other drug are not suitable or have stopped working for a patient.

An earlier research has shown that aside from many side effects, rosiglitazone can create heart problems such as increase the risk of heart attacks and heart failure. Now, a more updated study has been made available to the public regarding the negative effects of this anti-diabetes drug on the heart.

In a new study which involved 4,447 individuals, each participant was given a combination of 2 type of diabetes drug in which 50% of the participants took rosiglitazone.

Results from the study revealed that rosiglitazone doubled the participants’ chances of acquiring heart problems, thus confirming the claim of earlier study.

Among individuals who took rosiglitazone, 27 out of 1 000 had a heart problem compared with only 13 out of 1 000 who did not take the drug. The problem found was heart failure which means that the heart has stopped working; it is not the same as heart attack.

However, the 5 years study also revealed that despite the said heart failure, individuals taking rosiglitazone do not have increased risk of dying due to heart problem. It was hypothesized that this could be due to the patient’s efforts of taking additional drug to respond to the heart failure. Although the study could not confirm whether resiglitazone increase the risk of heart attack among participants, it confirmed that rosiglitazone can increase the chances of having bones fracture, especially among women.

The study was led by a group of researchers from the Newcastle University, which was published at The Lancet, Elsevier’s medical journal website. GlaxoSmithKline which also manufactures rosiglitazone funded the said research.