Diabetes Drug Related to Cancer

Despite new health study suggestive that the inject diabetes drug LANTUS that power boost cancer risk and U.S. Food and Drug Administration on Wednesday urge patients who are on medicine to persist use it. And the three of four studies available most recent Friday in DIABETOLOGIA show a possible link between LANTUS and better risks for a variety of tumor type.

But, “the duration of patient follow-up in all four studies was shorter than what is generally considered necessary to evaluate for cancer risk from drug exposure,” the FDA said in its first comment on the issue. “Further, inconsistencies in findings within and across individual studies raise concerns as to whether an association between the use of insulin glargine and cancer truly exists.”

“Based on the currently available data, the FDA recommends that patients should not stop taking their insulin therapy without consulting a physician, since uncontrolled blood sugar levels can have both immediate and long-term serious adverse effects,” the agency wrote.

And “For patients using glargine and considering switching to another form of insulin, the data in these studies make it unclear as to whether any one type of insulin increases the risk of cancer more than other types of insulin,” the ADA said.

“Patients concerned about these studies or their insulin regimen should talk to their doctor and should not stop taking their insulin on the basis of the findings reported here.”

And the FDA says it “encourages both health care professionals and patients to report side effects from the use of insulin glargine to the FDA’s MedWatch Adverse Event Reporting Program.”