Avandia slashes diabetes risk: Study

As millions of people are in the cluches of diabetes, the disease could simply be averted by taking a drug commonly used to treat it, according to the largest diabetes prevention study yet conducted.

An international trial led by researchers at McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario, suggest that Rosiglitazone, or Avandia, an oral drug used for treating patients with type 2 diabetes, may significantly reduce the chances of developing the disease when taken by those most at risk.

The Canadian led study enrolled 5,269 volunteers, aged 55 years with impaired glucose tolerance, an early warning symptoms of diabetes. The participants were recruited from 191 sites, including McMaster University, in 21 countries. All had "pre-diabetes" or blood sugar abnormalities that showed half of them would fall under the grip of Type 2 diabetes within three years.

"We looked at individuals who were on average 55 years of age and at risk of Type2, or adult onset, diabetes, which actually accounts for 90 per cent of all people with diabetes," Dr. Sonia Anand, associate professor and researcher at MacMaster University said.

According to the results of the study, known as DREAM (Diabetes Reduction Assessment with ramipril and Rosiglitazone medication), the study participants were randomly put on a daily dose of either Rosiglitazone or a placebo, and were followed for three years.

After observing them for three years, the researchers discovered 658 individuals on a placebo, had developed diabetes, compared with 280 on Rosiglitazone. There was a small increased risk of heart failure, which was not fatal, in the subjects taking the active drug.

The results were presented Friday in Copenhagen, Denmark at the 42nd Annual Meeting of the European Association for the Study of Diabetes, and were published in the New England Journal of Medicine.

The International trial has shown that the drug has reduced the incidence of Type 2 diabetes by over 60 per cent in high-risk individuals. The chances of developing Type 2 diabetes are closely associated with obesity. The obesity rate is increasing rapidly worldwide and health experts are predicting an epidemic of diabetes by the year 2020.

Type 2 diabetes can lead to kidney failure, amputation and eventually death. Approximately 220 million people around the world have the disease, including 18 million Americans and almost two millions affected in the UK. It is also one of the fastest spreading diseases in Canada, with 60,000 new cases every year.

Rosiglitazone is an anti-diabetic drug from the thiazolidinedione class. It is being marketed as Avandia® by the British-based pharmaceutical company GlaxoSmithKline. So far, it is used to treat diabetes, but is not licensed as a measure to prevent it.

The trial, which also discovered that the drug helped restore normal blood-sugar rates to many participants, was funded by the Canadian Institutes of Health Research, Sanofi-Aventis and King Pharmaceuticals (manufacturers of ramipril) as well as GlaxoSmithKline (manufacturer of Rosiglitazone).