Diabetes drug metformin 'best for preventing cardiovascular disease'

The diabetes drug metformin is better at preventing heart attacks and stroke than other commonly prescribed drugs, new research suggests.

Metformin is usually the first drug of choice for people with type-2 diabetes, but a number of other therapies - including insulin secretagogues (ISs) such as glimepiride, glibenclamide, gliclazide and tolbutamide - are sometimes prescribed instead.

Scientists at the Rigshospitalet Copenhagen University Hospital set out to investigate the long-term effects of type-2 diabetes drugs.

They followed everyone living in Denmark who had been treated with an IS or metformin between 1997 and 2006 (a total of 107,806 people).

Treatment with most IS drugs was associated with a higher risk of death and a greater risk of heart attack and stroke than metformin treatment.

Patients with no prior history of heart attack were between one-fifth and one-third more likely to die if they were taking glimepiride, glibenclamide, glipizide or tolbutamide than if they were using metformin.

The risk was even greater for patients who had previously had a heart attack.

Lead researcher Dr Tina Ken Schramm, whose findings are published in the European Heart Journal, said that the results probably have 'more to do with the beneficial effects of metformin, gliclazide and repaglinide than the detrimental effect of the other ISs'.

Judy O'Sullivan, senior cardiac nurse at the British Heart Foundation, said that the study 'adds weight to the argument that metformin should be considered as the first drug of choice to treat type-2 diabetes'.

She added that people with diabetes should avoid smoking, eat a balanced diet, maintain a healthy weight and control their blood pressure and cholesterol.ADNFCR-554-ID-800491193-ADNFCR

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