2 Drugs Better Than 1 to Treat Youth With Type 2 Diabetes

2 Drugs Better Than 1 to Treat Youth With Type 2 Diabetes: A combination of two diabetes drugs, metformin and rosiglitazone, was more effective in treating youth with recent-onset type 2 diabetes than metformin alone, a study funded by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) has found. Adding an intensive lifestyle intervention to metformin provided no more benefit than metformin therapy alone.

The study also found that metformin therapy alone was not an effective treatment for many of these youth. In fact, metformin had a much higher failure rate in study participants than has been reported in studies of adults treated with metformin alone.

The study found that treatment with metformin alone was inadequate for maintaining acceptable, long-term, blood glucose control in 51.7 percent of youth over an average follow-up of 46 months. The failure rate was 38.6 percent in the metformin and rosiglitazone group, a 25.3 percent reduction from metformin alone. In the metformin plus lifestyle group the failure rate was 46.6 percent.