Diabetes: Major drugs cause bone loss and fractures

18 December 2008

The major drugs for treating type II diabetes can cause bone loss and fracture, a new study has discovered. The effects can occur within just a year of taking the drugs.

Although doctors already knew that this can be a common reaction to the drugs, they didn’t realize that it can happen so soon after starting a prescription.

Up to now, drug regulators have considered the benefits outweigh the risks, but the new study from the University of East Anglia may force them to reconsider their position. Women are especially affected by the drugs, the researchers have discovered, and this is an added concern at a time when older women in particular risk bone loss and fracture from their diabetes.

An earlier study also found that the drugs can cause congestive heart failure, and even heart attack.

(Source: Canadian Medical Association Journal, 2009; 180 (1). Doi: 10.1503/cmaj.080486).

Diabetes: Major drugs cause bone loss and fractures

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