Study finds certain diabetes drugs may cause bone fractures

NEW YORK A certain class of diabetes drugs may put patients at higher risk of bone fractures, according to a study published in the online edition of the journal PLoS Medicine.

Researchers at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, in the United Kingdom, used data from a database of more than 6 million British patients, using data from 1,819 patients aged 40 and older who had experienced a bone fracture while taking at least one drug called a thiazolidinedione.

Taking age and the resulting higher risk of fractures into account, the researchers found that patients had fractures at 1.43 times the rate while taking the drugs as when they didn’t take them. Among patients taking the drugs for four years or more, the rate was twofold. Though the study’s findings suggest an association between the drugs and higher risk of fractures, the researchers cautioned against jumping to conclusions based on them.

“These findings do not prove that thiazolidinediones cause fractures because, despite the self-controlled case-series design of this study, it remains possible that the people who have fractures share some unknown characteristic that affects their chances of breaking a bone,” the researchers wrote.

Thiazolidinediones, also known as glitazones include drugs such as GlaxoSmithKline’s Avandia (rosiglitazone) and Takeda Pharmaceuticals’ Actos (pioglitazone), both of which were included in the study.