I think the title of the article says a lot - No Compelling
Evidence Linking Incretin Therapies, Pancreatic Cancer. The
word compelling is characterized by this definition (of an argument,
evidence, etc) convincing. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration
(FDA) and its European counterpart started reviews last year of the
medications, which came on the market less than a decade ago, after a
study suggested a safety concern.
Now I have concerns – only one year
of reviews – is not long enough to be sure there are no problems
and I suggest that people continue to be cautious. Several others
have written blogs about this, including one by David Mendosa titled
safety-diabetes-drugs.
While I think this is good, call me a skeptic. Pancreatitis pain is
often not expressed by many patients. They want something to bring
their blood glucose levels under better management and they often
think that then their pancreatitis will go away.
It is true that the incretins do spur
the pancreas to produce more insulin after meals. However, if the
pancreas is losing the ability to produce more insulin, is this doing
any value by stressing the pancreas even further? This is the reason
people should not leave insulin as the medication of last resort.
Our doctors are always pushing people to take more oral medications.
The New England Journal of Medicine
says that the European and FDA say that reviews of animal and human
studies had found no treatment-related adverse effects on the
pancreas. What is not disclosed is how healthy were the rodents used
and were healthy type 2 humans used in the studies. This is often
the case and why I have no faith in the studies.
Then the last paragraph even creates
more doubt when it says, “Although the review ''provides
reassurance,'' the agencies ''have not reached a final conclusion''
about whether the drugs can cause pancreas problems and will
''continue to investigate this safety signal,'' the authors write.
Meanwhile, the drugs' labels appear adequate, the agencies conclude.”
No comments:
Post a Comment