New DPP-4 diabetes drugs linked to heart failure

Monday, September 16, 2013 by: Ethan A. Huff, staff writer
Tags: heart failure, diabetes drugs, DPP-4

(NaturalNews) Despite laughable attempts by the mainstream media to spin the study in a positive light, new research out of Massachusetts has confirmed that the novel dipeptidyl peptidase-4 (DPP-4) class of diabetes drugs can increase users' risk of developing heart failure. According to data compiled by researchers from Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston, individuals who take diabetes drugs like AstraZeneca and Bristol-Myers Squibb's Onglyza could end up destroying their heart's ability to pump blood, resulting in death.

The two-year study, which included 16,492 patients taking Onglyza for their diabetes, had originally been designed to assess the risk of heart attack associated with the drug. But the industry-funded research ended up finding other problems with Onglyza that shatter any hope of it ever being a safe and effective way to manage diabetes. According to Reuters, the drug not only failed to reduce heart attack risk as originally hoped but also proved to be more dangerous than previously thought.

While the study was taking place, an unusually high number of participants were being admitted to the hospital for heart failure, prompting researchers to take a closer look at what was happening. Much to their surprise, Onglyza was found to be directly linked to this uptick in cardiovascular events. Furthermore, it was determined that Onglyza in no way helps diabetes patients avoid having a heart attack, which means it is essentially useless.

"It is a little bit concerning," commented Dr. Christopher Grainger from the Duke University Medical Center in North Carolina to Reuters about the findings. Dr. Grainger was not directly involved in the study. "I'm sure the FDA (U.S. Food and Drug Administration) will want to know more about it."

In a related study published in the New England Journal of Medicine, Takeda Pharmaceutical Company's rival drug, Nesina, proved abysmal after researchers were unable to observe any decrease in heart attack risk from taking the drug. This patient study, which involved 5,380 participants, similarly found no benefits from taking Nesina except for a slight decrease in weight gain compared to other anti-diabetic drugs.

"I think it shows that [this] class of drugs has significant problems with toxicity, particularly cardiovascular toxicity," Dr. Steven E. Nissen, chairman of cardiovascular medicine at the Cleveland Clinic, is quoted as saying to Zolmax News about DDP-4 drugs.

Onglyza from same class of diabetes drugs as deadly Avandia

As you may recall, the popular GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) diabetes drug Avandia was pulled from the market back in 2011 after it was found that the drug significantly increases users' risk of heart attack -- and GSK intentionally hid this fact from the public for more than 10 years. Like Onglyza, Avandia also comes from the DPP-4 class of diabetes drugs, which has proven time and time again to negatively affect the heart.

"Our data ... show an increase in hospitalization for heart failure in patients who received saxagliptin (Onglyza), which was not expected and deserves further study," stated Dr. Eugene Braunwald, the study's chairman from the cardiovascular division at Brigham and Women's Hospital and Harvard Medical School.

Similar diabetes drugs in the DPP-4 class have been linked to causing both pancreatitis and pancreatic cancer, not to mention increased mortality from all causes. And yet the FDA has done little to protect the public from this nightmare class of drugs, all the while allowing drug companies to continue developing new DPP-4 drugs like Onglyza that put public health at serious risk.

Sources for this article include:

http://www.reuters.com

http://www.medicaldaily.com

http://www.drugwatch.com