Controversial Drug Avandia Linked to Osteoporosis Risk
After the recent controversies facing the makers of Avandia and the risk of heart failure, a new issue has emerged with the popular drug. According to the online issue of Nature Medicine, researchers found that the drug increased the degradation of bone in mice. This could explain why diabetics taking Avandia long term have had an increased risk of fractures due in large part to drug induced osteoporosis. GlaxoSmithKline, Avandia’s makers, has acknowledged that a study found a higher risk of fractures among woman taking the drug for diabetes. In the past the assumption was that the fragility of bones in diabetics was the result of naturally reduced bone-building activity and not increased bone removal. The finding “has led to a better understanding of the challenges associated with long-term treatment of patients with Type II diabetes,” said Ronald M. Evans of the Salk Institute for Biological Studies in La Jolla, Calif., lead author of the report. He goes on to say that the discovery was fortuitous. “Considering the widespread use of these drugs and the known action in people it is surprising that such a key observation had been missed,” Evans said. The research was funded by the Howard Hughes Medical Institute and the National Institutes of Health.
