written by Michael O’Leary
Good news, bad news for people taking new class of type 2 diabetes drugs…
People with type 2 diabetes who take one of the newer add-on drugs have been whipsawed by the news this past week that on the one hand their drugs might lower their risk of being hospitalized for heart failure, while on the other the drugs might increase their risk of pancreatitis.
The drugs in question are a new class of drug, called GLP-1 agonists that work by boosting the level of a hormone in the intestines that promotes insulin secretion. The drug names read like the pharmaceutical hit parade of the last few years, Victoza, Byetta, Bydureon, Januvia, Onglyza, Nesina, Oseni, and Tradjenta.
The FDA released an alert about these drugs March 14, stating that it is evaluating unpublished new findings by a group of researchers that suggest these drugs increase the risk of pancreatitis and pre-cancerous changes called metaplasia. The new research was based on examination of a small number of pancreatic tissue samples taken from type 2 diabetes patients who had died of unspecified causes.
The FDA cautioned, however, that the details of the study design and method for collecting the data has not been disclosed, and the agency has asked the researchers for more information about the study.
Four days earlier, HealthDay reported that researchers from Henry Ford Hospital in Detroit had found that patients taking these drugs, including Byetta, Januvia and Victoza, were 40 percent less likely to be hospitalized for heart failure compared to those prescribed other glucose-lowering drugs.
They reported their findings this week at the American College of Cardiology’s annual meeting in San Francisco. In the study, the researchers led by Dr. David Lanfear of Henry Ford, analyzed the data from more than 4,000 patients taking medications for type 2 diabetes between 2000 and 2012. About 1,500 were taking the GLP-1 drugs and the rest were not.
Over an average nine-month period, patients taking the GLP-1 drugs were 41 percent less likely to hospitalized with heart failure than those not taking the drugs, 44 percent less likely to be hospitalized for any cause and 80 percent less likely to die of any cause compared to those who were not taking the GLP-1 drugs.
So what should type 2 diabetes patients who are taking these drugs do? The FDA says that at this time, patients should continue to take their medicine as directed until they talk to their health care professional, and health care professionals should continue to follow the prescribing recommendations on the drug labels.