THE US: Two popular drugs used to treat diabetes can cause fluid buildup and heart failure in some patients, US doctors said yesterday.
The drugs, prescribed for type-2 diabetes and sold under the brand names Avandia and Actos, caused heart failure and a buildup of fluid in the lungs in six men with poor kidney or poor heart function, researchers said.
"It seems to me these drugs may not be safe in such patients. They may not be able to tolerate fluid overload induced by such drugs," said Dr Abhimanyu Garg, a professor of internal medicine at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Centre in Dallas, who led the study.
Makers of the drugs disputed whether the study showed a direct link between the medications and heart failure in patients.
Nonetheless, the findings, published in the Mayo Clinic Proceedings, were another potential blow to the newest class of diabetes drugs, the thiazolidinediones or glitazones.
The first drug in the class, Rezulin, was pulled from the market in March 2000 after about 100 people who took it died from acute liver failure or had to have liver transplants.
Pfizer Inc, which owns Rezulin as part of its purchase of Warner-Lambert Co, is fighting off thousands of lawsuits alleging that Warner-Lambert failed to inform the public of the drug's health risks.
In June, 32 patients filed lawsuits against GlaxoSmithKline Plc, which makes Avandia, known generically as rosiglitazone, claiming damaging fluid buildup.
The six men whose cases are detailed in the report took either Avandia or Actos, known generically as pioglitazone and jointly marketed by Japan's Takeda and Eli Lilly & Co Inc. - (Reuters)