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Diabetes Current Topics in Diabetes

A Pill to Prevent Diabetes?

For the most part, people who are at high risk for type 2 diabetes have several things they can do to lower their risk of developing the disease: maintain a healthy weight, exercise and limit sweets.

But a new study has found that a drug may also be added to this equation to reduce one’s risk even more.

A team of researchers have found that a common diabetes drug may not only help those with diabetes manage their disease, but also help those at risk for type 2 diabetes avoid getting the disease in the first place.

Insulin is a hormone produced by the body to help metabolize glucose. In people with type 2 diabetes, the body does not produce enough insulin or the insulin it does produce does not work properly. As a result, the body cannot adjust adequately to changing levels of glucose. Pre-diabetes, on the other hand, is a condition that is considered to be a precursor to diabetes, when the body begins to have a lower tolerance for glucose.

In the study, researchers from Canada looked at over 5,000 adults with some symptoms of pre-diabetes. Half of the participants were given a standard dose of rosiglitazone (Avandia), a drug commonly used to treat people with full-blown type 2 diabetes.

Over the course of three years, the participants were monitored for the development of diabetes. By the end of the study, those taking the drug seemed to have reduced their chance of developing type 2 diabetes by almost 60 percent.

“The results of this study suggest that the addition of rosiglitazone to basic lifestyle recommendations substantially reduces the risk of developing diabetes by about two-thirds,” writes Dr. Nicholas Wareham, lead author of the study, published in the Lancet.

However, the authors do not suggest that those at risk for developing diabetes begin to take this drug, “despite the impressive risk reduction for progression to diabetes.” Barriers to offering this drug to those at high risk include the lack of data on long-term benefits and side-effects, along with the high cost of therapy.

Additionally, when taken long term, the drug carries a risk of heart failure. “The greater benefits in higher risk individuals would have to be balanced against the likely risk of heat failure,” writes Wareham.