Not good for Avandia: Risk of heart attack seen in diabetes pill

[Horse with no Name]

http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/news/nation/stories/052207dnnatavandia.daf5d4.html
>>>Snip
Avandia, the world's top-selling oral diabetes drug, significantly increases the risk of heart attacks, a prominent cardiologist said in an article that the New England Journal of Medicine deemed important enough to post on its Web site Monday, weeks before the scheduled print publication date.

Dr. Steven Nissen, a cardiologist at the Cleveland Clinic and the article's lead author, pored through summaries of dozens of studies and found a 43 percent higher risk of diabetics suffering a heart attack if they took Avandia compared with other drugs or sugar pills. Dr. Nissen was unable to determine whether the risk is affected by how long Avandia is used or how much is taken.

GlaxoSmithKline, which manufactures Avandia to treat type 2 diabetes, the most common form of the disease, said it stands by the drug's safety and called the findings of Dr. Nissen and a Cleveland Clinic statistician "flawed." The company said other clinical trials contradict the report's conclusions, including one that examined medical records for 33,000 diabetics.

Since the Food and Drug Administration approved Avandia in 1999, doctors have written tens of millions of prescriptions for the drug. Last year, Avandia generated $3.1 billion in sales worldwide.

[nadinbrzezinski]

1. FYI as a nurse you will be interested to know that

it has a nasty side effect: WEIGHT GAIN, spectacular in fact

You think the two are connected?

Me, took it for less than a year, and still trying to loose all that weight

[Horse with no Name]

2. Well since weight gain isn't good for a Diabetic

and fat isn't good for a heart patient...you really have to wonder if the excess fat load potentiates the CV side effects.

[nadinbrzezinski]

3. There you go

I personally gained over 50 pounds in six months, and the last 20 is like pulling teeth

They just don't want to go

Lets see if doing exrecise five times a week does it

Granted I was overweight before, but trust me, this has been a nightmare

When I read the article this mornign I went, shit, thanks Smith Kline, and US Government

Apparently the FDA has been aware of this little problem

[NavyDavy]

5. I never gained any weight from avandia i have been taking it

for almost 3 yrs

[NavyDavy]

4. this scares me I am on avandia for type 2 diabetes