For many patients, it starts with a little back pain and urine discoloration — symptoms that are easy to ignore and very forgettable.
But, either quickly or over time, the back pain becomes chronic and the discolored urine alarming. Those early signs of bladder cancer aren’t easily detectable. That’s why it’s such a sneaky disease. And that’s why type 2 diabetes patients taking pioglitazone (brand name Actos) need to be on the alert.
The FDA warns about Actos and bladder cancer to type 2 diabetes patients taking the drug. Other alarming Actos side effects include bone fractures, degenerative eye disease, and congestive heart failure.
Actos: Â The Next Great Diabetes Drug?
Introduced in the United States in 1999, Actos was supposed to be the next great drug to treat type 2 diabetes. The drug’s inventor and manufacturer, Takeda Pharmaceuticals, said Actos helps increase the body’s sensitivity to insulin, a hormone produced in the pancreas that controls blood sugar levels. It was supposed to lower the risk of heart problems.
As is the case with many drugs, the marketing hype did not match the reality.
Actos belongs to the much-maligned class of drugs called thiazolidinediones. Of the three drugs in its class — Actos, Avandia, and Rezulin — Actos is the only drug that remains on the market.
The other two have been either recalled or severely restricted because of their detrimental health effects. All three drugs are known to work in the same manner.
Pioglitazone Remains on the Market Despite Alarming Health Concerns
Although initial clinical trials showed that Actos may be linked to bladder cancer, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) allowed the drug on to the market with the stipulation that further testing be conducted. Takeda started its 10-year look into the bladder cancer risk in 2002. When the first five years of that study showed a 40 percent increased risk of bladder cancer for those taking Actos longer than a year, a firestorm of controversy erupted.
French and German drug regulators responded by recalling the drug. (1)
In the United States, the FDA put a new warning on the drug label. The end of the study, which comes in late 2012, coincides with Takeda losing its exclusive patent on Actos sales and the windfall that comes with it.
Coincidence? Â Perhaps not.
Some Doctors Refuse to Prescribe Actos
For many U.S. medical specialists, the FDA’s response was not strong enough, so they took matters into their own hands. Doctors yanked their patients off the drug, switching them to more trusted medicines like metformin.
Other researchers decided not to wait to see what Takeda’s study would show in the end, instead starting independent studies of their own.
One such study conducted by Canadian researchers found that the risk is much higher than first believed — Actos patients face an 80 percent increase in the risk of bladder cancer over those taking other diabetes medications. (2)
When you add the bladder cancer risk to the drug’s propensity to cause congestive heart failure, it truly is a recipe for a medical disaster.
Roseann I agree with you completely. I take advantage of when people ask me about side effects to try to cautiously place suspicion in their minds about the safety of what they’re using, but I have to be careful because I have bills to pay. I’m in school, going to graduate with a BS in dietetics and then I’ll help people get healthy, not treat symptoms, by eating a diet like you described!
I dont have proof, but I.believe my mother died from complications with that drug.
Metformin is Glucophage….worse drug ever.
Does the risk go away if you stop taking Actos?
This article says that doctors are switching their patients from Actos to a more stable drug, metformin. Metformin is not stable. It is lethal. It reduces the bodies ability to absorb B vitamins. Without B vitamins we can not use iron. It also has a host of other toxic side effects. how do i know? I took this horrible drug. Now I have to live with the effects of it for the rest of my life.
Sad part is that type 2 can be reversed without drugs. A change in diet is all that is needed. Grassfed meats and fats and vegetables. No grains or sugar. These drugs dont do much except give people the impression that they can eat what they want and the drug will control the rise in blood sugar. This is so the doctors can get their perks from the drug companies. No regard fot the patients welfare at all.
While SOME cases of type 2 diabetes can be reversed by diet and exercise, to imply that it would work in all cases is pretty irresponsible and frankly, it comes off as very condescending. My husband has type 2 diabetes. He was diagnosed a year ago and he was at a healthy weight, we exercise daily and we eat a paleo diet. For whatever reason, his pancreas has just stopped working like it needs to so he has to take metformin 2x a day to keep his blood sugar regulated. Possibly due to the way he ate while he was growing up and/or through genetics. Who knows. What I do know is that I would never make a blanket statement like yours because there’s no way you can know the circumstances for ever single individual who’s affected by this disease.
Thank you for sharing.
I feel like if I worked in a place that sold pharmacy drugs or say, a dentist office, I’d want to give out little note cards to each individual noting how dangerous the things they are taking really are. Also on the note card would be natural remedies and healthy eating, of course! 😉
Not loved ones, but I sell this crap along with a lot of others as a pharmacy tech and it kills my spirit more and more each day.
My father was put on Actos, and within a few years, developed both heart failure and bladder cancer. He died March 31, 2004. We did not know at the time that this terrible drug did these things to him. When I took him to his cardiologist, the doctor went as far as to tell him that he did not have heart failure. I immedicately took him to another cardiologist who put him in the hospital right from the doctor’s office. We didn’t even have time to pack him a bag for the hospital. He suffered and died without ever knowing that this was done to him. Before he died, his feet became gangrenous because the blood could not get to his feet due the to fact that his heart was failing and did not have enough pumping force to get the blood down there. They could not amputate due to the fact that his heart was in such bad shape and he was in excruciating pain until they finally mummified. From this day forward, I will not say that he died from heart failure and bladder cancer, but he was the victim of medical malpractice by a greedy pharmaceutical company that put profits ahead of patients and the FDA for being so reckless. They took my father from me prematurely.