US doctors continue to be unsure whether oral medication prescribed for glucose control has good or bad effect on the patient’s heart. Research efforts to determine the relationship with various diabetes drugs over the past year have also proved largely inconclusive, with the exception of metformin, a generic drug.

Clinical trials on this drug have helped provide some clues and may eventually show the way ahead in the treatment of diabetes. The latest issue of Archives of Internal Medicine features the results of 27 different studies conducted over the drug. One group of researchers reported a positive link between the drug and cardiovascular health.

The report by this group from the John Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health linked the inexpensive oral drug metformin with a decrease in heart disease and the number of deaths resulting from such diseases. Several super-specialists in internal medicine echoed the findings and said they believed the drug didn’t compromise cardiovascular health. This was in contrast to risks associated with another drug Avandia which is more expensive and currently under the scanner.

A study conducted last year had found a link between Avandia and an increased risk of heart disease, although it proved remarkably effective in lowering blood sugar levels. Researchers involved in that study had also said their results could not be considered conclusive as they were not substantiated by clinical data which the group did not have.

The current analysis on metformin may likely make patients feel more at ease. But an accompanying report by the John Hopkins Bloomberg SPH goes on to give a more conservative assessment. It says the differences observed in weight, cholesterol and blood pressure were relatively small. These differences may not add up to significant benefits to cardiovascular health in the long run, the group said more realistically.
In the same issue of the medical journal, another study had pointed to a significant increase in the cost for diabetes treatment. A team comprising researchers from the University of Chicago and Stanford University found Americans had spent $12.5bn in 2007 on glucose control medicines. The figure is almost double the amount that was spent in 2001 - $6.7bn.

Likewise, there has also been a huge increase in the number of people diagnosed with the disease - from 6.1mn in 2007 to 18mn in 2007 according to official figures.