Is There An Increased Cardiovascular Risk With Avandia?

According to a recently completed study by GlaxoSmithKline, the company’s diabetes drug Avandia does not cause an increased heart attack risk. Understandably, many doctors have doubts about Glaxo’s research. The Glaxo study, called Record, was presented at the American Diabetes Association conference. Record involved over 4,000 people, and compared diabetics who used Avandia in combination with other diabetes medications, with diabetics who used cheaper, more traditional drugs, like metformin. Record showed that the risk for cardiovascular death and stoke was about the same for both groups, even though the Avandia group had twice the risk of heart failure. The study also confirmed that Avandia is linked to an increase in bone fractures. The Record study was published in the British medical journal Lancet, which also included an editorial calling the results inconclusive due to limitations in the study. Record is one bright spot for Avandia, after a 2007 study showed that Avandia increased the risk of heart attacks among users. Since 2007, Avandia sales have seriously dwindled and lawsuits have been filed against Glaxo.