Should You Stop Taking Your Avandia?

Recently an article published on May 21^st in the New England Journal of Medicine raised concerns that Avandia, a popular drug used to treat Type 2 Diabetes Mellitus may increase the patient's risk of heart attack. Furthermore the article claims that if a patient has a heart attack they are also at increased risk of dying from the heart attack than someone not taking Avandia. The article obviously raises significant concern about the safety of this drug which millions of Americans are now taking.

What is Avandia?
It is a drug used to treat Type 2 Diabetes Mellitus. Its generic name is rosiglitazone. Rosiglitazone is part of a class of drugs known as TZDs. TZDs work by promoting the uptake of glucose into fat cells and other cells. Another popular TZD is pioglitazone, also known as Actos. It has been well known that patients taking TZDs should be monitored for problems with their liver. Also, pregnant women and people with a diagnosis of heart failure should not take TZDs. But the possibility of increased risk of heart attack had not been previously addressed in these drugs.

So does the drug really cause heart attack's?
Depends on who you ask. GlaxoSmithKline, the makers of Avandia, claim that the conclusions reached in the NEJM article are based on incomplete evidence. They cite the ADOPT trial, one of the largest clinical trials in people with type 2 diabetes as evidence against the NEJM article. They claim that the ADOPT trial did not show that Avandia had a significantly larger increase in the number of heart attacks compared to other common medications for diabetes. They also state that all of their own retrospective trials have so far shown that Avandia and related drugs, Avandamet and Avandaryl are all safe.

So far the FDA has not pulled the drug off the market and are currently reviewing all available evidence about the drug. They have not confirmed or denied the evidence that the drug increases the risk of heart attacks.

Should I stop taking Avandia?
Not yet. You should never stop taking a drug without talking to your doctor about it first. Your doctor may decide to switch you to a different drug, as some of them are already doing for their patients. However, there are significant risks with switching medications. At this time the FDA has not yet recommended that any patient stop taking Avandia based on the NEJM article. If you are truly concerned you should schedule an appointment with your doctor today.