14 DAY TRIAL // Investigators from the Washington University in St. Louis (WUSL) School of Medicine (WUSM) say the younger type II diabetes patients, between the ages of 10 and 17, answer better to a combination of two diabetes treatments, rather than to a single one.
The team is careful to point out that the same may not hold true for older patients, and advises them against combining diabetes drugs, unless otherwise instructed by their doctors, or until proper research can be conducted for their respective age group.
Funds for the new investigation – which consisted of a multi-center clinical trial – were provided by the US National Institutes of Health (NIH). The work was led by the director of the Pediatric Clinical Research Unit, Neil H. White, MD.
He is also a professor of pediatrics and medicine at WUSM, as well as a diabetes specialist at St. Louis Children's Hospital. The investigation was called the Treatment Options for type 2 Diabetes in Adolescents and Youth (TODAY) study.
The efficiency of the diabetes drugs metformin and rosiglitazone was analyzed both individually and jointly, in a first-of-its-kind, comparative effectiveness trial designed specifically for younger patients. Details of the work appear in the April 29 issue of the prestigious New England Journal of Medicine.
“The results suggest that even in youth who appear to have mild type 2 diabetes, early aggressive intervention is necessary to achieve the control needed to prevent the devastating health consequences of type 2 diabetes, such as coronary artery disease, stroke, kidney and eye disease and nerve damage,” White explains.
“The impact of these health consequences is clear in adults, but when they manifest at a younger age the personal and societal impact will be even greater,” the investigator goes on to say. He adds that the research was carried out on 699 test subjects.
“The continued follow-up of these subjects will be an important component of determining the long-term impact of diabetes-related complications and heart disease and the benefits and risks of early intervention,” the team leader concludes.
Interestingly, researchers found that the commonly used drug metformin is a lot less effective in younger people than in adults. At this point, this is the only oral drug approved for general use by the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA), especially in treating children.
The new work suggests that the effectiveness and harm potential this compound has may need to be reevaluated thoroughly.