Avandia (rosiglitazone), a medication for people with type 2 diabetes, has been the subject of studies evaluating its safety and the results aren’t what Glaxo (the manufacturer) had hoped for. According to researchers in Toronto, Canada, elderly people who take Avandia may have an increased risk of heart failure and death.
The researchers didn’t, however, find the same results that American researchers found two years earlier, which suggested that Avandia also increased the risk of heart attacks. The Canadian researchers found no difference between patients who took Avandia and another type of medication, Actos (pioglitazone), and the rate of heart attacks …read more

The widely used diabetes drug rosiglitazone has been found to dramatically boost the potency of platinum-based cancer drugs when administered together in a variety of cancer cell lines and mice with tumors.
Rosiglitazone, sold under the name Avandia®, enhances insulin receptors’ sensitivity in diabetics whose pancreas secretes too little insulin. It was approved in 1999 for use by patients with type 2 diabetes to help control blood sugar levels.
Conducted by scientists from the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, the platinum chemotherapy agent-diabetes drug rosiglitazone combination halted or shrank mouse tumors as much as three times more effectively than either of the drugs given …read more