Thursday, October 20, 2005
New Diabetes Drug May Triple Death Risk
Yes, you read that right. Triple the death risk for those who took Pargluva compared to those who didn't. That would be a big disappointment to the manufacturers of the drug, but for one thing--the FDA advisory panel recommended approving it by 8-1.
See the link for more on that:New Diabetes Drug May Triple Death Risk
Pargluva is one of a highly anticipated new class of diabetes drugs that targets both blood sugar and cholesterol. With insulin resistance and high cholesterol, you're two-thirds of the way to a clinical diagnosis of metabolic syndrome. For people with diabetes, this type of drug may very well be extremely helpful--if it can be proven safe.
The most morbidly interesting part of this process may be the weight of the dangers between diabetes and other conditions. Type II Diabetes can be generally considered to double the aging process, bringing on death from all sorts of terrible conditions a lot earlier than they would occur otherwise. So if someone is expected to die from a heart attack due to the presence of diabetes, is it worth it to moderately raise the chances of dying from cancer to prevent this heart attack?
Of course, the ideal situation is to avoid causing one problem while preventing another, but this is harder than it looks when dealing with the ingestion of potentially toxic concoctions. In this case, since the rate of heart attacks was shown to be increased, as well as the rates of cancer, the point may be moot, and we'll hope that researchers can figure out the problems before this drug gets to the marketplace.
But as rates of diabetes, cancer, heart attack, stroke, and just about everything else rise to epically bad proportions, we may very well be faced with questions like that more and more. Digg This!
See the link for more on that:New Diabetes Drug May Triple Death Risk
Pargluva is one of a highly anticipated new class of diabetes drugs that targets both blood sugar and cholesterol. With insulin resistance and high cholesterol, you're two-thirds of the way to a clinical diagnosis of metabolic syndrome. For people with diabetes, this type of drug may very well be extremely helpful--if it can be proven safe.
The most morbidly interesting part of this process may be the weight of the dangers between diabetes and other conditions. Type II Diabetes can be generally considered to double the aging process, bringing on death from all sorts of terrible conditions a lot earlier than they would occur otherwise. So if someone is expected to die from a heart attack due to the presence of diabetes, is it worth it to moderately raise the chances of dying from cancer to prevent this heart attack?
Of course, the ideal situation is to avoid causing one problem while preventing another, but this is harder than it looks when dealing with the ingestion of potentially toxic concoctions. In this case, since the rate of heart attacks was shown to be increased, as well as the rates of cancer, the point may be moot, and we'll hope that researchers can figure out the problems before this drug gets to the marketplace.
But as rates of diabetes, cancer, heart attack, stroke, and just about everything else rise to epically bad proportions, we may very well be faced with questions like that more and more. Digg This!
