Diabetes Drug Pioglitazone Causes Serious Edema (Accumulation of Fluid in the Body)
Diabetic patients who are treated with Pioglitazone are found to have 75 percent increases in body weight, which occurs due to water retention.
Dr Ananda Basu at Mayo Clinic compared the effects of Pioglitazone and Glipzide for body composition and water content on 19 patients.
Pioglitazone caused an average increase in total body water of 2.4 L. This accounted for 75 percent of the patients’ average weight gain of 3.1 kg. There was no change in total body water content with glipizide.
Dr Basu’s team also measured the patients’ accumulation of total abdominal and visceral fat, fat deposits surrounding the internal organs associated with an increased risk of cardiovascular disease. With pioglitazone, the researchers recorded a decrease of 32 and 16 cubic centimeters in total abdominal and visceral fat, respectively. With glipizide, fat levels increased by 38 and 18 cubic centimeters, respectively.
Pioglitazone also tended to reduce the average blood pressure, but glipizide had no impact on blood pressure.
Dr. Basu suggests cautionary steps to be undertaken by heart or kidney patients since Pioglitazone’s effect on body water content is much more substantial than had been thought previously.
Source: Diabetes Care, March 2006
Filed under Diabetes
March 30th, 2006 at 1:11 am
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