Actos arrests heart disease in diabetics: study

By Julie Steenhuysen

CHICAGO (Reuters) - The popular diabetes pill Actos prevented the build-up of fatty deposits in heart arteries in a study of patients with type 2 diabetes, U.S. researchers said on Monday.

They said the Takeda Pharmaceutical Co Ltddrug Actos, known generically as pioglitazone, is the first diabetes therapy shown to reduce the progression of atherosclerosis.

"The results are very striking. In my view, this is really a breakthrough study," Dr. Steven Nissen of the Cleveland Clinic, who led the study, said in an interview.

"No one has ever shown any diabetes therapy could slow the progression of disease. Keep in mind the leading cause of death for diabetics is cardiovascular disease," said Nissen, whose findings were published online in the Journal of the American Medical Association and presented at a meeting of the American College of Cardiology in Chicago.

Diabetics are especially prone to atherosclerosis, which involves the build-up of fat, calcium and other deposits in the arteries.

The study, known as PERISCOPE, compared two types of medications to treat type 2 diabetes -- Actos and glimepiride, an older sulfonylurea drug that is among the most commonly used classes of diabetes therapies.

Actos is in a class of drugs known as thiazolidinediones, a relatively new group of antidiabetic agents that are known to raise the risk of heart failure and bone fractures.

In the current study, Nissen and colleagues compared the two drugs to see how well they reduced progression of atherosclerosis in 543 patients with type 2 diabetes and coronary disease.