Buy Actos (Metformin) at low price. Save big money ordering Actos in bulk. Worldwide delivery.
The type 2 diabetes drug Avandia increases the risk of heart failure and death more than another drug in the same class, Actos new Canadian research contends.
Avandia has been the subject of controversy since 2007, when it was associated to an increased risk for heart attack and death, although those claims have become clouded as other studies have discounted that risk to some degree. But if taken together, many believe that the drug should not be used, especially since there appears to be a safer choice.
In 2007, Dr. Steven Nissen, chairman of the Department of Cardiovascular Medicine at the Cleveland Clinic, made a study that found Avandia showed a 43% greater risk of heart attack among diabetes patients, and he remains convinced that the medication should not be used.
Rosiglitazone should not be taken by patients with diabetes and Pioglitazone is a safer substitute.
There is increasing number of evidence that Actos is safer than Avandia, Juurlink said. Not a single study has suggested that pioglitazone might be less safe than rosiglitazone. Both Avandia and Actos belong to a same class of drugs called thiazolidinediones, which are used widely to lower blood sugar in people with type 2 diabetes. In addition to an increased risk for heart failure, both medications can also cause adverse effects that include weight gain and fluid retention. Both medications carry a U.S. Food and Drug Administration precaution label about the risk of heart failure and heart attack.
TThe latest report on the safety of these medications is published online Aug. 19 in the BMJ.
For the study, Juurlink's team collected data on 39,736 patients taking Avandia or Actos between April 2002 and March 2008. The researchers compared these information with hospital records of heart failure, heart attack and deaths.
The researchers found that patients taking Avandia were at higher risk of heart failure and death than those taking Actos. There was no important difference between the drugs for the risk of heart attack, Juurlink's group noted.