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WASHINGTON (AFP) – Actos, a medicine that treats adult onset diabetes, also prevented the development of the disease in more than 70 percent of people who are considered high risk, according to findings announced Wednesday. The results could help tens of millions of pre-diabetics in the world, including 40 million Americans, who are considered high risk because of excessive weight, ethnicity or other predispositions. An Actos (pioglitazone) pill taken each morning prevented the onset of Type 2 (adult) diabetes in 72 percent of the 602 high-risk participants in the study, whose findings were published in the New England Journal of...

A molecular pathway could explain how a class of drugs leads to heart failure. Researchers who study how tumours balloon in size have discovered one way that enlargement of the heart can lead to heart failure. The work, although mostly done in mice, could help explain why a class of diabetes drugs called thiazolidinediones (TZDs) increase the risk of heart failure.These drugs have been controversial since a 2007 analysis1 of Avandia (rosiglitazone), a TZD made by GlaxoSmithKline, suggested that patients taking it are at increased risk of heart attack. Less controversial are data linking TZDs with heart failure, a distinct...

NEW YORK — Treatment with a thiazolidinedione, either pioglitazone or rosiglitazone, has been linked to an increased rate of bone fractures, particularly in women, in several recently published reports. Although a definitive link between these drugs and an increased fracture risk has not yet been proved, the evidence amassed so far is suggestive enough to prompt caution in the treatment of patients with a thiazolidinedione (TZD), Dr. Robert G. Josse said at a meeting sponsored by the American Diabetes Association. “In those with a higher fracture risk, consider other hypoglycemic therapy,” advised Dr. Josse, professor of medicine and nutritional sciences...

Contact: Jessica Guenzel jguenzel@wfubmc.edu 336-716-3487 Wake Forest University Baptist Medical Center WINSTON-SALEM, N.C. –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....

Takeda Pharmaceuticals Europe has reported new data from a clinical trial which showed that Actos has reduced the atherosclerotic burden in the coronary arteries compared to the sulphonylurea glimepiride, and prevented progression compared to baseline in patients living with type 2 diabetes. Results from the Periscope trial were also presented by the company. Periscope is claimed to be the first clinical trial to examine the effects of an oral antidiabetic medication on the development of coronary atherosclerosis in patients with type 2 diabetes using Ivus technology. Ivus measures the volume of plaque build-up in the coronary arteries, a marker of...