Takeda's Actos prevents diabetes, study finds

[Lone_Star_Dem]

Source: Reuters

WASHINGTON, June 9 (Reuters) - Actos, a pill to treat diabetes, can prevent development of the disease in people with early symptoms, U.S. researchers reported on Monday.

A study sponsored by Japan's largest drug maker, Takeda Pharmaceutical Co Ltd <4502.T>, showed use of its drug Actos reduced by 81 percent the number of people with so-called pre-diabetes who developed type-2 diabetes, compared to people taking a placebo.

"The clinical response in this study is next to astronomical -- not 100 percent but obviously highly significant," said Dr. Ralph DeFronzo of the University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio, who led the study.

Actos and its rival Avandia from GlaxoSmithKline <GSK.L> are insulin sensitizers, belonging to a class of drugs called thiazolidinediones, TZDs or glitazones, which help the body better use insulin.

Read more: http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/N09255912.htm

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If this is true and it's safe for this use, then this is good news for many people.

[Juche]

1. Wonderful

Type II diabetes costs $120+ billion a year to treat.

[thecrow]

2. I'd recommend this 500 times if it were allowed

and even more then.

Great news! My sons are both50% genetically inclined to inherit this disease.
Their father, at 56, is already on the insulin pump.
(I don't have it, and am not inclined to have it)

So many people can be saved a life of suffering and early death by a drug such as this.

[aquart]

3. Side effects?

[yellowdogintexas]

4. apparantly none, my husband has been on it for a long time and I do

not recall him ever mentioning anything he could associate with this medicine. Other things he was able to pick up side effects right away.

[Lone_Star_Dem]

5. That I know of?

Nausea and weight gain. The person I know who took this says weight gain was the one real problem for them.

I expect, as with so many pharmaceuticals now days, there's something worse that's not common knowledge at the moment.

It still has potential to lead to research which might prevent type-2 diabetes in some people though. If what they're claiming is true that is.

[Hannah Bell]

7. The first drug in this class, Rezulin, was taken off the market in 2000.

Liver damage.

There's no drug without side effects. I wouldn't be too sanguine about this one either, & the "stops diabetes from developing" hype is meaningless hype.

Type 2 diabetes = blood sugar over x level in x circumstances.

Exercise & weight loss will also "stop diabetes from developing".

[TalkingDog]

9. Exactly.

My sister had diabetes, was on insulin and even on a drug trial. Which was most likely what gave her the stroke (as the trial was suspended soon after because of similar problems).

I had bitched at her for years about her diet and once she was home and in my clutches, I had her son follow my guidelines on diet and supplements. And within 6 weeks the doctor took her off the insulin. Within 6 months she was off every drug (she had been taking about 6 different prescriptions for BP, digestive problems, and diabetes) except one blood thinner.

She went from being about 60 pounds over weight for her 4.11 foot frame to about 10 pounds over. Her blood pressure has not strayed out of the normal range and once we got her off the Lipitor her brain function and mood made improvements above the recovery from the stroke.

She still won't exercise, but unfortunately using a cattle prod on her is illegal.


My genetic history is rife with diabetes, stroke and cancer. People think I'm a freak for eating the way I do, taking supplements and pushing my body with exercise and hard work. But watching 2 grandparents and both parents die either in a tangle of tubes or with cancer eating away at them, I'm not too keen on the alternatives....

[PDittie]

6. Been taking it for about a year

But I've been T2 for about five years now.

It's part of the Avandia family but has not been implicated in the Avandia cardiac issues. I tolerate it pretty well, which is to say no nausea and no weight gain.

My blood sugar is well-controlled and the Actos also lifts my good cholesterol number, which is genetically too low. So it's been very effective for me with no side-effects.

[catchnrelease]

8. Serious weight gain

My Mom was on Actos for less than a year. She has type II and meticulously watches and records all of her numbers and what she eats. Her diet is what the Dr and nutritionist recommended. In the year that she was taking Actos she put on 30 pounds! Since the last thing she needed was to gain weight, she got really distraught and was becoming depressed, as she hardly ate anything anymore. As I said, it's all the proper food for a diabetic, not things that should raise her blood sugar levels, or cause weight gain. And she does do as much exercise as she can--she's 82 and has to be careful of overdo-ing (?) one knee. She was an avid golfer until just last year also. But no matter what she did, she could not stop the weight gain. Finally, recently, after complaining to her Dr for months, she got him to take her off of this drug. (She's on something new, but I don't remember the name.) She's already dropped 6 pounds.

Kind of a side note, her Dr put her on Actos when her sugar levels, which had been pretty consistent and within reasonable range, started going up. They couldn't figure out what was going on, so the Dr started her on Actos. Not too long ago, here on DU, there was a discussion about diabetics and steroids, and sugar levels going wacky. Well guess what.....when I asked Mom if she'd received any steroids in the time frame that included the rising blood levels, she tells me she'd gotten them several times--after cataract surgeries, knee surgeries, cortisone shots in her shoulder, for a bout of bronchitis, etc. Her doctor never mentioned that this could affect her blood sugar. This really makes me angry, that MD's don't even inform the patient of, or maybe aren't aware of this connection, and yet will put patients on drugs so easily. (And Mom is one who asks questions about everything her Dr's are doing, not one who just accepts a prescription and walks way.) It's so frustrating!

[cannabis_flower]

10. It remains to be seen if..

it prevents diabetes as well as Glucophage (Metformin) with as few side effects.

http://www.karlloren.com/data/p32htm.htm

Sponsored by the National Institutes of Health, the American Diabetes Association and a medley of public and private sponsors, the program also noted that volunteers reduced their risk of the disease by almost a third by taking the Bristol-Myers Squibb Co. diabetes-treatment drug Glucophage, also known as metformin.

Volunteers who took metformin reduced their risk by 31%, compared with a 58% reduction by those who changed their lifestyle. The drug worked best in the youngest and most obese volunteers, while older and thinner volunteers didn't respond.

But even though metformin's benefit was less striking than that of weight loss, David Nathan, a Harvard professor and the study's chairman, says, "This is the first study showing medication can prevent type 2 diabetes."

I have been diagnosed with impaired glucose tolerance but not yet diabetes and have been taking it for about 2 years and have lost about 60lbs.