Can Low-Dose Avandia for Diabetes Avoid Lethal Side Effects?

Jun. 3, 2010— -- Amid calls to pull the controversial diabetes drug Avandia from the market, new research suggests that a low dose of this GlaxoSmithKline drug may help prevent diabetes without undue risk.

Though the study, published Wednesday in the Lancet, showed few adverse side effects for a low-dose treatment, diabetes experts say Avandia has a history of potentially lethal side effects, and that further testing and use of this dangerous drug is questionable.

"This is a desperate attempt to salvage a dangerous drug," Dr. Sidney Wolfe, director of Public Citizen's Health Research Group, says of the study. Wolfe urges that trials on Avandia, known clinically as rosiglitazone, be halted due to the mounting evidence that the drug brings with it significant risk of heart attack, weight gain, and other health risks.

In the study, test subjects were given a half-dose of Avandia paired with another diabetes drug, metformin, over a four-year period. They saw "very little in the way of adverse side effects," says study author Dr. Bernard Zinman of the University of Toronto. The study was not designed to test cardiovascular safety however, and the results cannot speak to the controversy surrounding the drug, Zinman says.

"I can't say that this is strong evidence that [Avandia] is safe, but it implies that at this dose it is much better," Zinman says.

Given Avandia's troubled history, complete with thousands of patient law suits and FDA recognition of its added risks, however, diabetes experts question the motivation for continuing research on this drug.

Avandia's competitor, pioglitazone (Actos), works just as well with fewer risks, and intensive lifestyle counseling has been shown to work as well with no side effects, so, Wolfe asks, why continue to play with fire?

The drug combination in the Lancet study reduced the relative risk of developing type 2 diabetes by 66 percent among those patients at risk when compared to placebo.

Past studies have shown that intensive lifestyle counseling can reduce diabetes risk by nearly 60 percent, but Zinman says that this type of regular coaching is difficult to implement without society-wide changes in diet and exercise habits.

While all participants in the study received one-on-one coaching on diet and exercise changes in the first year, nearly forty percent of those who received only this counseling and a placebo went on to develop diabetes while only 14 percent of those treated with drugs did.