Avandia and Actos Linked to Heart Attacks in U.K.

Greg Owen

Attorney

0 CommentsPrint ArticleSubscribe

As in the United States, the obesity epidemic is growing in the United Kingdom. It is a known fact that obesity greatly increases a person's risk of becoming diabetic. In fact, the use of diabetes drugs, which are given to hundreds of thousands of mostly overweight people in the United Kingdom, are said to be causing another serious problem - heart failure.

The drugs in question are Avandia (rosiglitazone) and Actos (pioglitazone). Use of these drugs have double in the United kingdom in the last three years. Reachers have revealed that as many as one in every 50 patients who are taking these drugs over a 26 month period of time are subsequently being hospitalized for heart failure. Reachers further stated in the journal Diabetes Care, that this particular class of drugs doubles the risk of heart failure, and that includes individuals who have had no previous history of heart abnormalities.

You may recall that concerns about these drugs started in May when a United States cardiologist published finding linking diabetes drugs to an increased risk of heart and cardiovascular disease. Not altogether surprising was the fact that the finding were strongly contested by the drug company that manufactured the drug.

Meeting have been scheduled to further discuss the safety of these drugs.

For more information on this subject, please refer to our section on Drugs, Medical Devices, and Implants.