(Focus pg 41, New Straits Times 9 Dec 2007)

The popular diabetes drug marketed as Avandia may increase bone thinning, a discovery that could help explain why diabetics can have an increased risk of fractures.

New research raises the possibility that long-term treatment with rosiglitazone, as Avandia is also called, could lead to osteoporosis. The diabetes drug is used to improve response to insulin.

While bones seem solid, they are constantly being broken down and rebuilt by the body. Researchers found that in mice, the drug increased the activity of cells that degrade bones, according to a report in Nature Medicine.

Avandia recently was labeled with warnings about the risk of heart failure in some patients.

GlaxoSmithKline, which markets the drug, has acknowledged that a study found a higher risk of fractures among women who take the drug. But this report is the first attempt to explain the link between the drug and fractures.

Rosiglitazone is widely used in people with Type II, or adult onset diabetes, the most common form of the disease.

Ronald M. Evans of the Salk Institute for Biological Studies in La Jolla, California said the discovery was fortuitous. Researchers were looking at different aspects of the diabetic mice and did not realise they would be able to change the bone-removing activity.