Type 2 Diabetes Drug Avandia Offers Unexpected Bonus

Filed in archive News on August 30, 2006

Rosiglitazone (brand name Avandia), used to treat Type 2 diabetes, was recently discovered to offer yet another benefit: it appears to halt the progression of diabetes developing in pre-diabetics. More than 41 million people in America alone have glucose complication--often referred to as 'pre-diabetes'--so this finding could be significant. So far, the only known weapons against the development of diabetes are exercise and a healthy diet.

`I think it will change treatment practices if it stands up,'' said Dr. Andrew Drexler, director of the Gonda Diabetes Center at the University of California-Los Angeles. Drexler was not involved in the study.

Some physicians, such as Dr. Stuart Weiss of the New York University School of Medicine, have begun giving rosiglitazone to their pre-diabetic patients.

``Getting people on drugs early is a very important thing,'' he said. The complications of diabetes, such as heart and kidney disease, ``occur even before the diabetes is diagnosed. . . . We need to be much more aggressive and get in sooner.''

The drug does offer one troubling side effect: an increase in congestive heart failure, which is of course the opposite outcome when using the diet and exercise method. Also, rosiglitazone costs about $170.00 a month, while taking a walk is free.

Will an available diabetes prevention drug make people 'lazier?' Or is it crucial in fighting diabetes?