Diabetes has been a growing problem over recent years. More than likely you or someone you know has been affected by diabetes in one way or another. A report today by ABC.com stated that 45 percent of adults have diagnosed or undiagnosed high blood pressure, high cholesterol, or diabetes.

It is important to know what kind of medication you or your loved one is taking when it comes to diabetes, so we will do a quick rundown of the most popular diabetes drugs and how they work.

Actos Oral

Actos is an anti-diabetic drug that is prescribed along with a proper diet and exercise program in order to control high blood sugar in patients that suffer from type 2 diabetes. Actos works by helping to restore your body’s proper response to insulin, which in turn lowers your blood sugar.

Amaryl Oral

Amaryl aka Glimepiride is an anti-diabetic drug that is used in patients with type 2 diabetes. Amaryl works by to stimulate the release of your body’s natural insulin. Controlling high blood sugar will allow diabetics to avoid kidney damage, blindness, nerve problems, and many other problems while also lessening the risk of heart attack and stroke.

Lantus SubQ

Lantus is used in people with type 1 (insulin-dependent) or type 2 (non-insulin-dependent) diabetes. Lantis is a man-made, long-acting type of insulin that is similar to human insulin but starts working more slowly and lasts longer than regular insulin produced by the body.

Avandamet Oral

Avandamet works by helping to restore your body’s proper response to the insulin you naturally produce. Avandamet belongs to a class of drugs known as thiazolidinediones or “glitazones.”

Cozaar Oral

Cozaar is used to treat high blood pressure and also to help protect the kidneys from damage due to diabetes and works by blocking the hormone angiotensin which relaxes blood vessels, causing them to become wider. Cozaar is in the class of drugs called angiotensin receptor blockers.

Glucophage Oral

Glucophage is used in people with type 2 diabetes (non-insulin-dependent diabetes) and works by controlling high blood sugar. Proper control of diabetes may also lessen your risk of a heart attack or stroke. It is in the class of drugs known as biguanides and works by helping to restore your body’s proper response to the insulin your body naturally produces, while also decreasing the amount of sugar that your liver makes and that your stomach and intestines absorb.

These are just a few of the more common drugs that you may be prescribed by your doctor. If we didn’t cover your diabetes drug in this post, check out healthcentral.com and study up on your diabetes drugs. Also, always make sure you know of any and all possible side effects that could occur.

Wow, what a nailbiter. That’s enough to give Glaxo execs a heart attack (or at least increase the risk of one by, oh, 43 percent.)

(Via Reuters.)

The widely used but controversial diabetes drug Avandia will now have a strong “black box” warning on its label, advising users of an increased risk of heart failure, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration announced late Tuesday. Another four diabetes drugs from the same class, including Actos, will also carry a similar black-box message, which is the agency’s strongest label warning. The FDA and the drug manufacturers, GlaxoSmithKline and Takeda Pharmaceuticals, have been negotiating the label changes since May.

Studies have suggested that Avandia (rosiglitazone), made by Glaxo, and Actos (pioglitazone), made by Takeda, raise patients’ odds for heart failure. Other research has suggested that Avandia might possibly raise users’ risk for heart attack, though the FDA has said that more investigation on that issue is needed.

“Under FDA’s post-marketing surveillance program, we carefully monitor new safety information for marketed drugs and take appropriate action when necessary to inform patients and health care providers of new information,” Dr. Steven Galson, director of the FDA’s Center for Drug Evaluation and Research, said in a prepared statement.

How about a little PRE-marketing surveillance, FDA?

GlaxoSmithKline on Wednesday took some of the attention away from disappointing sales of diabetes drugs by announcing it was lifting its stock buyback authorization to 12 billion pounds ($24.7 billion).

Experts expected to see Glaxo report a $200 million revenue plunge in sales of Avandia, its diabetes medicine that’s been linked to an increased risk of heart attacks. According to The Times of London, analysts, on average, predicted that global sales of the drug during the three months to June 30 had fallen by 23 per cent to £367 million, compared to £477 million in 2006. (You can double those numbers for the impact in U.S. dollars.)

The drop in sales was even worse, though — to £349 million.

Nonetheless, with the buy-back news, the stock was up Wednesday.

Older drugs controlled blood sugar levels about as well as the thiazolidinediones [Avandia] did. There were some differences, however, in other effects.

Thiazolidinediones were the only drugs that increased HDL “good” cholesterol levels, but they also increased LDL “bad” cholesterol levels. Metformin reduced LDL cholesterol levels, while the other agents appeared to have no effect on cholesterol levels.

With the exception of metformin, the drugs generally increased body weight by 1 to 5 kilograms. Compared with other drugs, sulfonylureas and repaglinide were tied to increased risks of low blood sugar, thiazolidinediones were linked to heart failure, and metformin raised the risk of stomach and intestinal problems.

“Each oral diabetes agent is associated with adverse events that counterbalance its benefits,” the researchers conclude. “Overall, metformin seemed to have the best profile of benefit to risk.”

Avandia side effect reports tripled in the month after a controversial study linked the blockbuster diabetes drug to increased risks of heart disease, reports the Associated Press. In the 35 days after May 21, when the New England Journal of Medicine published the analysis on the Internet, reports of heart attacks, deaths and hospitalizations leaped …

Only five heart attacks were reported in the 35 days before the study, compared with 90 in the same period afterward. Heart-related hospitalizations went from 11 to 126. The reports involve rosiglitazone, sold as Avandia and Avandamet. The reports — obtained from the FDA through a Freedom of Information Act Request — suggest that doctors, previously unfamiliar with Avandia’s side effects, started to report problems that they once thought unrelated to the drug.

However, it’s not possible to infer any conclusion more complete than that, because the FDA’s reporting system is completely voluntary. It has value as an early-warning system, but that’s about it — and it’s the foundation of the FDA’s post-approval drug monitoring process. The jump in Avandia side effect reports might not say much about the drug, but it certainly says a lot about the need to reform the FDA.

Drug companies are going to try to get away with everything they can to make a profit, that’s a given. The FDA should be the regulatory force that keeps Big Pharma in check instead of being its accomplice.

As long as the FDA is getting its paycheck from Big Pharma, drugs are going to keep getting approved, and American citizens will continue to be stuck in the middle … getting screwed.

Henry Waxman summed it up well when he said,

Despite additional warnings from outside experts, despite the millions of patients who rely on Avandia to control their blood sugar, and despite the potential risks involved, FDA never required the manufacturer to conduct a thorough postmarket study of its heart risks.

It’s astounding to think that the agency put into place specifically to protect the public health by assuring the safety, efficacy, and security of drugs would not require the manufacturer to conduct a thorough post-market study of its heart risks.

And even worse, to be eight years down the road and still in the same position.

Ridiculous.

The government’s own preliminary evaluation of the diabetes pill Avandia confirms the heart risks reported in a study earlier this week and suggests that as many as 60,000 to 100,000 heart attacks might be linked to its use since it came on the market eight years ago, a leading member of Congress said Thursday.

In a floor statement placed in the Senate record, Sen. Charles Grassley also said that safety watchdogs within the federal Food and Drug Administration “several months ago” recommended a “black box” on the drug’s label — the strongest possible warning…

Grassley complained that FDA higher-ups have said they want to wait for results of an ongoing study that will not be available for two more years before making a decision. “That’s a long time from now when you have millions of Americans taking this drug,” said the statement by the Iowa Republican. “Those numbers seem like a high enough threshold to me for the FDA to warn the American people of the possibility of a problem.”

GSK, meanwhile, disputes the findings:

Company officials said that while their own similar analysis suggested a 31 percent greater risk — information it shared with the FDA as early as 2005 — more rigorous, albeit smaller, individual studies did not show that.

Please — this drug should have had a black-box warning on it the day it was released.

How does a drug go from blockbuster to bust?

How can big safety issues go undetected in medicines taken by millions of people for many years, as happened this week with the diabetes pill Avandia and a few years ago with the painkiller Vioxx?

Here’s a three-letter hint: the FDA. As long as the FDA has a vested financial interest in helping drug companies bring product to market, we will see these scenarios for years to come.

Isn’t it ironic that the FDA won’t allow the importation of drugs from Canadian pharmacies due to “safety reasons,” but will allow a drug to stay on the market that increases a patient’s risk of heart attack by 43 percent?

The simple answer to Marilynn’s question is this: FOLLOW THE MONEY.