Diabetes drug raises mortality

London, Dec. 4: A popular diabetes medicine that is taken by millions of people around the world raises mortality risk by 60 per cent, British researchers have claimed.

The drugs, known as sulphonylureas, are commonly used to treat Type 2 diabetes. The researchers at Imperial College London found that the drug increases the risk of dying from any cause by 60 per cent.

They also increased the likelihood of heart failure — a condition where the heart fails to beat strongly — by 30 per cent, compared with another common medicine. They said the findings were important, but stopped short of saying that diabetics should avoid the drugs.

They said guidelines already recommend that metformin, the drug they used for comparison, be used in preference to sulphonylureas.

Lead author, Professor Paul Elliott, wrote in the British Medical Journal: “The sulphonylureas, along with metformin, have long been considered the mainstay of drug treatment for Type 2 diabetes. Our findings suggest a relatively un-favourable risk profile of sulphonylureas compared with metformin.”

Another author, Dr Iain Frame, said, “This study looks at the relative risk of the various drugs used to treat Type 2 diabetes. It is a retrospective study and there is nothing particularly new revealed here.”

In addition, the study —involving over 90,000 diabetics in Britain — found that a newer drug called pioglitazone, reduced the risk of dying when compared with metformin by up to 39 per cent, The Telegraph reported.