GlaxoSmithKline's Avandia® (rosiglitazone maleate), a drug currently used to treat type 2 diabetes has shown to be preventative for that disease.Researchers reporting in last week's Lancet found that after 3 years, 10.6% of people with a pre-diabetes condition1 who took 8 mg. Avandia daily progressed to type 2 diabetes, compared to 25% of a similar high-risk control group. Both groups received standard counseling on healthy eating and exercise.
Avandia reduced the risk of developing diabetes by 62% relative to a group that received just standard counseling.
For Comparison
The Diabetes Prevention Program Research Group found similar reductions although without medication.
Reporting in the New England Journal of Medicine in 2002, they estimated that 14.4% of people with a pre-diabetes condition who received intensive lifestyle intervention, but no drugs, progressed to type 2 diabetes after 3 years, compared to 28.9% of a similar high-risk control group who received just standard counseling on healthy eating and exercise.
Intensive lifestyle counseling reduced the risk of developing diabetes by 58% relative to a group that received just standard counseling.
Choices
Drugstore.com places the retail price for Avandia at $205 for a month's supply (30, 8mg tablets).
If your sugars have been running high and you're determined to avoid a diagnosis of diabetes - and money is no obstacle - Avandia may prove helpful.
If you're looking to avoid the cost or side effects (in the study, Avandia increased the risk for heart failure) of taking a drug, keep in mind that lifestyle changes, of the type described below, have proven highly effective at delaying the onset of diabetes.
The goals for the participants assigned to the intensive lifestyle intervention were to achieve and maintain a weight reduction of at least 7 percent of initial body weight through a healthy low-calorie, low-fat diet and to engage in physical activity of moderate intensity, such as brisk walking, for at least 150 minutes per week. A 16-lesson curriculum covering diet, exercise, and behavior modification was designed to help the participants achieve these goals. The curriculum, taught by case managers on a one-to-one basis during the first 24 weeks after enrollment, was flexible, culturally sensitive, and individualized. Subsequent individual sessions (usually monthly) and group sessions with the case managers were designed to reinforce the behavioral changes.
- The Diabetes Prevention Program Research Group, Reduction in the Incidence of Type 2 Diabetes with Lifestyle Intervention or Metformin
1 Participants had either impaired glucose tolerance (IGT), defined by a glucose level of 140-199 mg/dl, 2 hours after a 75 g glucose challenge; or impaired fasting glucose (IFG), defined by a fasting glucose level of 100-125 mg/dl; or both. Both of these conditions increase the risk of developing diabetes.
For The Lancet study (abstract available with free registration):
Effect of rosiglitazone on the frequency of diabetes in patients with impaired glucose tolerance or impaired fasting glucose: a randomized controlled trial
For The Diabetes Prevention Program Research Group's study (full article available with free registration):
Reduction in the Incidence of Type 2 Diabetes with Lifestyle Intervention or Metformin
For GlaxoSmithKline's press release (scroll down to September 15):
Avandia® reduces risk of progression from pre-diabetes to type 2 diabetes by 62 percent in largest ever diabetes prevention trial
