Taking These Commonly Prescribed Drugs Could Raise Your Blood Sugar
Up to 1 million Americans may be taking a prescription drug combo that may significantly raise blood sugar levels, and in some cases may be responsible for a blood sugar spike that leads to the diagnosis of type 2 diabetes.
The drugs — Paxil and Pravachol — belong to two of the most commonly prescribed drug classes in the United States: antidepressants and statin cholesterol-lowering drugs. When taken in combination, Paxil and Pravachol increased blood sugar by an average of 19 milligrams per deciliter among those without diabetes and an average of 48 mg/dl among diabetics.
The fact that the blood sugar spike was so significant in those with diabetes is concerning considering the American Diabetes Association notes that statins like Pravachol are the “most effective cholesterol-lowering drugs” to reduce the amount of cholesterol your body naturally produces” as well as to “reduce heart attacks and strokes.” They also note in this PowerPoint presentation that “most people with diabetes need medications to reach their target blood glucose, blood pressure and cholesterol (ABC) targets.”
This is debatable, but the point is that many diabetics are prescribed cholesterol-lowering drugs, including Pravachol, by their physicians. Further, it’s estimated that up to one-quarter of people with diabetes also suffer from depression, a rate that’s nearly twice as high as it is among those without diabetes. So it’s safe to say that many diabetics are also prescribed antidepressants.
But taking this drug duo if you have diabetes clearly appears to be dangerous to blood sugar levels, and even if you don’t, the drug combo could potentially push your blood sugar into a diabetic or pre-diabetic range.
The finding was not a fluke, either, as in addition to analyzing data from human patients, the researchers conducted an experiment in mice. Once again, when taken together Paxil and Pravachol increased blood sugar, this time from an average of 128 mg/dl to 193 mg/dl — that’s a whopping 65 mg/dl increase!
Other drugs, ranging from corticosteroids to decongestants and cold remedies to statins on their own, can also wreak havoc on your blood sugar levels, so if you experience an unexpected increase in yours, always ask your health care provider if your medications could be to blame.
Clinical Pharmacology and Therapeutics May 25, 2011
————————————————————————————————————
The Functional Endocrinology Center of Colorado is passionate about improving the lives and lifestyles of individuals with Type II Diabetes and Hashimoto’s Disease. Call us at 303-302-0930 to schedule your complimentary consultation.
Avandia to be Pulled From U.S. Retail Pharmacies
Eight months after the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) announced it would significantly limit the use of blockbuster diabetes drug Avandia, the Agency has decided to take even further regulatory action.
With the first ruling, Avandia was no longer prescribed for new patients unless their physician certified that other medications and interventions were not working. The new rules, which go into effect November 18, state that Avandia will no longer be sold at retail pharmacies and will only be available to patients who:
- Could not successfully control their blood sugar with other medications
- Have been informed of the risks and still decide to take it
- Have been “safely” using the drug
But the notion of “safely” using Avandia is misleading at best, as it has been linked to serious risks to your heart. These risks have been known for years; in 2007 a study published in the New England Journal of Medicine linked Avandia to a 43 percent greater risk of heart attack and an increase in the risk of death from cardiovascular causes compared to patients not receiving the drug.
But while the steep heart risks came to light publicly just a few years back, the drug’s maker may have known of the risks for more than a decade — since 1999. As the New York Times revealed last year, a study by SmithKline conducted in 1999 found that Avandia was more dangerous to the heart than a competing drug, Actos.
But despite the negative results, SmithKline chose not to post the findings or submit them to the FDA.
The good news is that many people may be spared a future heart attack now that Avandia will be essentially blacklisted. You deserve to restore your health, not risk it with potentially toxic drugs. And you can often do just that — become free of drugs, blood sugar worries, even get off insulin and reverse type 2 diabetes — when you are able to identify the underlying causative factors of your condition, and address them with a customized treatment plan.
U.S. News & World Report May 19, 2011
————————————————————————————————————
The Functional Endocrinology Center of Colorado is passionate about improving the lives and lifestyles of individuals with Type II Diabetes and Hashimoto’s Disease. Call us at 303-302-0930 to schedule your complimentary consultation.
Diabetes Drug Linked to Cancer
Adverse reactions among those taking anti-diabetic drugs are common; more than half a million reports of side effects were received by a U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) database between 2004 and 2009 alone.
Among them were 138 reports of bladder cancer, of which one-fifth were among people taking Actos (pioglitazone). This represents a “disproportionate risk” compared with other anti-diabetic drugs, and, according to researchers, “needs constant epidemiologic surveillance and urgent definition by more specific studies.”
This finding adds to an ongoing safety review the FDA is currently conducting on Actos, which also found potential bladder cancer risks. After analyzing data from a 5-year period of an ongoing 10-year observational study being conducted by the drug’s manufacturer, Takeda Pharmaceuticals, a significantly increased risk of bladder cancer was found among those who had been using Actos for more than two years and in those who had the highest cumulative dose of the drug.
Actos belongs to the class of diabetes drugs called TZDs (thiazolidinediones), which also includes Avandia, a diabetes drug that’s use has recently been restricted due to increased heart risks. TZDs are also known to lead to significant weight gain, which increases your risk of diabetes and diabetes complications
As for the cancer connection, Reuters reported:
“It’s not clear how Actos might increase the risk of bladder cancer, [study author Dr. Elisabetta Poluzzi] added. The drug treats diabetes by activating certain receptors on cells – much as a key opens or closes a lock, and this same mechanism may also encourage some cells to become cancerous, she said.”
Every diabetes drug carries with it an increased risk of side effects, some severe. The good news is that these drugs are not the only option if you have diabetes, as type 2 diabetes can often be prevented, managed and even reversed naturally.
————————————————————————————————————
The Functional Endocrinology Center of Colorado is passionate about improving the lives and lifestyles of individuals with Type II Diabetes and Hashimoto’s Disease. Call us at 303-302-0930 to schedule your complimentary consultation.
How Diabetes Medications May Make You Fat
TZDs (thiazolidinediones), a class of diabetes drugs that includes Actos and Avandia, are used to help lower blood sugar levels in diabetics, but at a steep cost: they often lead to significant weight gain.
Now researchers have uncovered why these drugs cause users to pack on the pounds.
A study on rats found the drugs influence a molecular system called PPAR-y. PPAR-y is found not only in fat tissue, where it influences the production of fat cells, but also in your brain. The diabetes drugs activated PPAR-y in the brain, leading to changes in appetite regulation that caused the rats to eat more. High-fat diets also activated the same system.
The researchers concluded one solution to the weight gain problem would be to redesign the drugs so they have less influence on your brain, but that would not do anything about the drugs’ other side effects. Avandia, for instance, has been linked to an increased risk of heart attack and stroke, and as a result U.S. regulators recently restricted its use.
Rather than rely on diabetes drugs that can cause heart troubles or lead to weight gain — which, ironically, increases your risk of diabetes and diabetes complications — why not try natural methods to restore your health?
It’s now well established that diabetes can actually be reversed, and numerous patients at the Functional Endocrinology Center of Colorado have experienced this firsthand. Often, a commitment to healthy lifestyle changes — including exercise and dietary changes that include limiting your refined carbohydrates — is successful at getting your blood sugar levels back into a healthy range, with no drugs required.
Nature Medicine May 2011;17(5):623-6
————————————————————————————————————
The Functional Endocrinology Center of Colorado is passionate about improving the lives and lifestyles of individuals with Type II Diabetes and Hashimoto’s Disease. Call us at 303-302-0930 to schedule your complimentary consultation.
Cholesterol Drugs May Give You Diabetes
A growing number of studies are prompting concerns that widely prescribed statin drugs, used to lower cholesterol, could be contributing to increasing rates of diabetes.
A new review published in Current Opinion in Cardiology noted:
“The increased incidence of diabetes with rosuvastatin [brand name Crestor] treatment in Justification for the Use of Statins in Primary Prevention: an intervention Trial Evaluating Rosuvastatin (JUPITER) reignited attention on the link between statin therapy and diabetes.
The JUPITER findings are supported by two recent meta-analyses of large-scale placebo-controlled and standard care-controlled trials, which, respectively, observed a 9% and 13% increased risk for incident diabetes associated with statin therapy.”
Separate research has also shown that statin use is associated with a rise of fasting plasma glucose in patients with and without diabetes.
If you are one of the millions of Americans taking statin drugs and you’ve recently been diagnosed with type 2 diabetes, it’s worth considering whether it could be drug-induced.
Current Opinion in Cardiology April 15, 2011
Lancet February 27, 2010; 375(9716):735-42
————————————————————————————————————
Dr. Heather Credeur, D.C. and Dr. Brandon Credeur, D.C. of The Functional Endocrinology Center of Colorado are passionate about improving the lives and lifestyles of individuals with Type II Diabetes and Hashimoto’s Disease. Call us at 303-302-0930 to schedule your complimentary consultation.
Spending on Anti-Diabetes Drugs is Out of Control
Anti-diabetes drug spending grew by $1.9 billion in 2010, making them the fourth top therapeutic class in the United States, according to IMS Health. In all, the IMS Institute report “The Use of Medicines in the United States: Review of 2010” noted that 165 million prescriptions for anti-diabetic drugs were filled in 2010, a nearly 4 percent increase over 2009.
The CDC also reported that over 84 percent of adults with diabetes took diabetes medication in 2008 — but with all of these diabetes drugs, are Americans getting healthier as the conventional medical establishment would have you believe?
Not exactly.
People with diabetes have double the risk of dying from a heart attack or stroke compared to those without. Diabetics also have a 25 percent greater risk of dying from cancer along with an increased risk of dying from infections, lung disease, kidney disease, falls and suicide.
Further, diabetes lowers life expectancy at every age, by an average of 8.5 years at age 50, 5 years at age 60 and one year at age 90.
As long as you have diabetes, these risks remain strong, and diabetes medications will not “cure” you of the disease. However, as even the mainstream media and many experts, including Dr. Brandon Credeur, D.C. and Dr. Heather Credeur, D.C., are now reporting, you can reverse diabetes … and, often, you can do it without drugs.
————————————————————————————————————
The Functional Endocrinology Center of Colorado is passionate about improving the lives and lifestyles of individuals with Type II Diabetes and Hashimoto’s Disease. Call us at 303-302-0930 to schedule your complimentary consultation.
Popular Thyroid Drug Leads to Bone Fractures
Levothyroxine (brand name Synthroid), a prescription medication widely used to treat hypothyroidism, is the fourth most prescribed medication in the United States. But despite its widespread use, serious side effects abound.
The latest research uncovered that seniors who took Synthroid in high or medium doses had a significantly increased risk of fractures — and the higher the dose, the greater the risk became.
Part of the problem is that Synthroid is notorious for having a narrow toxic-to-therapeutic ratio, which means there’s a fine line between the dose that’s safe and the dose that’s toxic. It’s very difficult to keep patients within the “optimal” range, and it’s thought that many seniors may be receiving excessive doses of the drug that is increasing their risk of side effects.
Along with increased fractures, Synthroid has also been linked to osteoporosis, atrial fibrillation, worsening of heart disease, preterm delivery in pregnancy, impaired fetal brain development, and high cholesterol. All of these are reasons why Dr. Brandon Credeur, D.C. and Dr. Heather Credeur, D.C. of The Functional Endocrinology Center of Colorado prefer to treat thyroid disorders using safer, non-toxic, natural alternatives.
BMJ April 28, 2011; 342:d2238.
BusinessWeek.com April 28, 2011
————————————————————————————————————
The Functional Endocrinology Center of Colorado is passionate about improving the lives and lifestyles of individuals with Type II Diabetes and Hashimoto’s Disease. Call us at 303-302-0930 to schedule your complimentary consultation.
Another Diabetes Drug Linked to Hundreds of Deaths
The diabetes drug Mediator (benfluorex), which was on the market in France for over three decades before being withdrawn last year, has now been linked to hundreds of death.
In all, a recent report suggests about 500 people may have died from the drug while another 3,500 were hospitalized for related valvular heart disease. Now the French Health Products Safety Agency is urging anyone who used the drug in the last four years to get checked out for heart valve problems right away, and to do so immediately if related symptoms like shortness of breath, swelling in the lower limbs, or unexplained fatigue are present.
After being prescribed to about 5 million people, the European Medicines Agency pulled Mediator from the market in 2009, citing concerns that it was of little benefit to diabetes and may lead to thickening of heart valves.
Mediator has also been banned in the United States, Spain and Italy, and joins the growing list of diabetes drugs linked to toxic — and sometimes fatal — outcomes.
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) recently limited the use of diabetes drug Avandia — taken by more than half a million Americans — due to increased risk of heart attacks and deaths, also from cardiovascular causes. In Europe, regulators went a step further and decided to take Avandia off the market entirely.
The FDA also denied approval to Bydureon, a new diabetes drug used to improve blood sugar control, until it undergoes further testing, including a trial that looks for possible cardiac risks.
You don’t have to look hard to find the pattern here, which is that many drugs for diabetes end up causing serious health complications, often while doing little, if anything, to treat the actual underlying causes of the disease.
So I want everyone reading this to know that if you suffer from type 2 diabetes, pre-diabetes or insulin resistance, there are natural steps you can take to get your blood sugar under control — without these potentially dangerous drugs.
Through our work at The Functional Endocrinology Center of Colorado in Denver, people are learning how to improve their health so they don’t need insulin and they don’t need drugs … in fact many of our “diabetic” patients become non-diabetic!
Please take the time to learn how you can reverse the course of type 2 diabetes using safe, effective and drug-free options now.
TheHeart.org November 18, 2010
————————————————————————————————————
The Functional Endocrinology Center of Colorado is passionate about improving the lives and lifestyles of individuals with Type II Diabetes and Hashimoto’s Disease. Call us at 303-302-0930 to schedule your complimentary consultation.
Thyroid Hormones Found in Natural Weight Loss Pills
Losing weight is an important part of staying fit and healthy as you get older, but you may want to think twice before turning to weight loss pills, even those that claim to be natural.
In an analysis of 81 over-the-counter slimming products, researchers found a mix of 12 potentially harmful agents that were not declared on the labels. Among them were:
- Prescription weight-loss drugs
- Drug analogues
- Banned drugs
- Drugs used for inappropriate indication
- Animal thyroid tissue
In the worst offenders, up to six different illicit substances were detected in a single dose. The products are suspected to be involved in 66 poisoning cases, one of which proved fatal. Also, since they include thyroid hormone, these weight loss pills have the potential to disrupt your thyroid hormones.
Many of these weight loss pills are available online and in local stores, so be wary of taking any such products. The findings were significant enough that researchers encouraged physicians seeing patients with “strange symptoms” to ask them if they’re taking over-the-counter weight loss pills.
If you need to lose weight, opt for safe solutions like modifying your diet and exercise programs rather than risking your thyroid and overall health with weight loss pills that could contain dangerous ingredients.
British Journal of Clinical Pharmacology October 13, 2010
————————————————————————————————————
The Functional Endocrinology Center of Colorado is passionate about improving the lives and lifestyles of individuals with Type II Diabetes and Hashimoto’s Disease. Call us at 303-302-0930 to schedule your complimentary consultation.
New Diabetes Drug Denied FDA Approval … for Now
It could be close to two years before Bydureon, a new diabetes drug whose approval was just rejected by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA), gets another shot at coming to market.
The drug, being developed by Amylin Pharmaceuticals and Eli Lilly, will need to undergo further testing, including a trial that looks for possible cardiac risks, before the FDA reconsiders its approval.
The drug, whose active ingredient — exenatide — comes from the saliva of the Gila monster, is a longer-lasting version of a similar drug already on the market, Byetta. Byetta is used to improve blood sugar control in people with type 2 diabetes, often in combination with other drugs.
While Byetta must be injected twice a day, Bydureon could be injected once a week.
However, if Byetta is any indication of the risks that lie ahead with Bydureon, the FDA made a wise choice in delaying its approval. Just two years ago, the FDA strengthened warnings on Byetta due to potentially life-threatening pancreas problems after two deaths and hospitalizations were reported.
Even Byetta’s Web site states that serious side effects “including inflammation of the pancreas (pancreatitis) which may be severe and lead to death” can occur in people who take the drug. Other known side effects include low blood sugar, kidney problems (including kidney failure that may require dialysis or kidney transplant), severe allergic reactions, vomiting, jittery feelings, acid stomach, headache and more.
There’s no telling which of these side effects, or others, may be associated with Bydureon as well if it ends up getting approved in 2012.
As always, it’s important to be well aware of the serious risks that come with taking medications for diabetes, and decide, along with your health care practitioner, if diet and lifestyle strategies could lead to similar improvements in your blood sugar control — without all the risks.
You’ll find that, often, a treatment plan individually tailored to your own underlying causative factors will resolve type 2 diabetes in a much safer, deeper and more effective way than drugs ever could.
Categories
|
Sign up for your
|
Sign up for your
|
CONTACT US4155 E. Jewell Ave
|