Diabetes 'drug cannot be justified'

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Studies have shown taking rosiglitazone could cut the risk of developing diabetes but lifestyle changes such as weight loss are just as effective, safer and cheaper, they said.

According to the charity Diabetes UK, rosiglitazone is commonly prescribed as a treatment for Type 2 diabetes in the UK.

More than 1.9 million people in the UK are diagnosed with Type 2 and up to 750,000 more are thought to be undiagnosed.

Type 2 is linked to lifestyle factors such as obesity and experts believe up to half of all cases could be prevented through changes to diet and exercise.

Researchers, writing in the British Medical Journal (BMJ) questioned the findings of studies looking at using drugs to prevent diabetes.

"The diabetes reduction assessment with ramipril and rosiglitazone medication (DREAM) trial recently showed that rosiglitazone reduced the risk of diabetes in people at risk," they said.

"The results have prompted aggressive marketing of rosiglitazone as a preventive therapy; some clinicians are already responding to this initiative.

"We argue that the strategy will bring harms and additional costs while the benefits for patients remain questionable."

They said the possibility of preventing diabetes with drugs had "caught the imagination" of the drug industry.