Countering Big Pharma Lies about Avandia

A reader protests that the TZD drugs, though they do cause people with diabetes to gain weight, redistribute the weight away from the abdominal area, where it is associated with insulin resistance, to other places on the body.

Well, this was part of the drug company hype used to promote the drug. They couldn't get away from the fact that this drug for a disease that is worsened by obesity increased obesity, so they came up with the idea that it created "good obesity."

Nonsense.

Here's the study, conducted by researchers from the Mayo Clinic, that showed that Actos (very closely related to Avandia) does not change the amount of visceral fat or redistribute fat the way the drug companies claim. The drug changes the waist hip ratio (the basis of that claim) by enlarging the hips by growing new fat cells.

http://care.diabetesjournals.org/cgi/reprint/26/11/3148
Effects of Pioglitazone Versus Diet and Exercise on Metabolic Health and Fat Distribution in Upper Body Obesity. Samyah Shadid, MD and Michael D. Jensen, MD (Mayo Clinic). Diabetes Care 26:3148-3152, 2003

And there is more troubling data about where those new fat cells are coming from. It turns out that in response to TZD drugs, the precursor cells that are supposed to be turning into bone are, instead, turning into baby fat cells. This is not new news, but it isn't something the drug company PR machine has let you know about. Here's a study that explains how Avandia does this. It is one of several studies linking TZD drugs with osteoporosis, especially in the older women most at risk for it.

Rosiglitazone impacts negatively on bone by promoting osteoblast/osteocyte apoptosis.
Soroceanu MA,Miao D,Mai XY, Su H,Goltzman D, Karaplis AC. J Endocrinol. 2004 Oct;183(1):203-16.


The reaction to yesterday's news was swift and predictable. The ADA and the American Heart Association (both heavily funded by Big Pharma) told patients to keep taking the drug while muttering about further studies being needed. The most recent news wire report says that Glaxo's own studies showed a 30% rise in heart attack risk. Months ago.

Reuters Story:Glaxo's own meta-analysis also showed Avandia risk

Why is the ADA telling patients to keep taking this drug? Am I the only one who sees irony in the way that ADA and AHA tell patients to take expensive Statin drugs for which the research, despite decades of searching, does not show clear evidence that they decrease heart attack risk in people who have not already had a heart attack, yet they tell patients to keep taking Avandia now that there is a lot of research suggesting that Avandia does raise the risk of heart attack and heart attack death risk significantly?

A drug that makes obese people fatter, increases the risk of heart attack, increases the risk of heart failure, increases the incidence of osteoporosis and bone fractures in women, and increases the risk of a blinding condition is NOT a drug anyone should be taking.

And yes, these drugs do lower blood sugar slightly (A1cs come down around 1%) but the point of lowering blood sugar is to decrease the incidence of complications, the most significant of which, for people with diabetes is heart disease.

Big Pharma's claim, "We have to give people a drug that gives them heart attacks to save them from heart attacks," is right up there with the Vietnam claim, "We had to destroy the village to save it."