The drugs used by millions of people to treat diabetes could increase the risk of heart attack and should be withdrawn on security grounds. Avandia should never have been licensed because its risks prevail over its benefits, said report published in the British Medical Journal.
The warning elevates worries about the way drugs are tested and regulated. Experts suggested that patients should nor stop taking the dug without intimating their doctor and also urged the health experts to review the way they treated diabetes. Avandia was first approved by the European Medicines Agency in year 2000.
It helped to reduce blood sugar of people suffering from Type 2 diabetes. The drug had become the best selling drug in the world. The producer of drug GlaxoSmithKline told that extensive research showed the drug was safe and effective. It is also known as rosiglitazone that has long been known to raise the risk of heart failure.
The latest studied highlighted that it can also escort to small increase in the risk of heart attack. An advisory body of the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MRHA) called The Commission on Human Medicines revealed that risks of rosiglitazone outweigh its benefits. The MRHA issued warning to GPs to watch out for dangerous side-effects and to consider substitutes.
The drug causes approximately one thousand extra cases of heart attack and another six hundred cases of heart failure a year. Even if you prohibited it to patients who do not have heart failure you will still get patients who newly develop heart failure, said clinical pharmacologist Dr Yoon Loke from the University of East Anglia.
The BMJ said no new patients should be started on Avandia and called on doctors to think substitutes. The drug’s manufacturer, GSK, said in response that patient safety is their priority. They have carried out an extensive research curriculum, connecting more than fifty thousand patients, and continue to believe it is safe and effective when it is prescribed appropriately.