Diabetes drug may cause heart attacks; heart attack drug may cause diabetes

The diabetes drug Avandia is linked with tens of thousands of heart attacks, and drugmaker GlaxoSmithKline knew of the risks for years but worked to keep them from the public, according to a Senate committee report released Saturday.

via Senate report links diabetes drug Avandia to heart attacks – CNN.com.

Okay, old news, at least to me.  Avandia has been sneered upon for several years in the medical community because of its cardiac side effects.

What I find ironic is that in recent weeks, the beloved statin medications — pretty much a guaranteed prescription if you have a heart attack – are increasingly being identified as a possible risk factor for diabetes.  Not only that, if you already have diabetes, you’re almost certain to end up on a statin, as well as being at higher risk for a heart attack.

So now we have the possible scenario:  patient has a heart attack.  Heart attack leads to statin.  Statin leads to diabetes.  Diabetes leads to diabetic med.  Diabetic med leads to heart attack.  Heart attack leads to … well, you get the picture.

What’s a diabetic to do?  If you’re type 2 (aka adult-onset) diabetic, there is hope.  You can break the cycle.  Many, if not most, cases of type 2 diabetes are preventable, if not reversible.  Most often, you don’t need medications to be healthy and step away from this absurd pharmaceutical-laden lifestyle.  Proper diet and exercise does work in many, many cases.  It requires discipline, to be sure.  But if the alternative is a lifetime of medications that may turn out to be at odds with each other, which would you prefer?