This blog tracks updates to the Blood Sugar 101 Web site.


Friday, June 24, 2011

Kombiglyze and Tradjenta--Ineffective, Expensive, DPP-4 Inhibitors with Scary Side Effects

Page Changed: Onglyza, Kombiglyze, Tradjenta -- Just like Januvia but Worse

Added the following:

Onglyza is now being being marketed as Kombiglyze, a pill that combines Onglyza and Metformin. Easily swayed doctors are therefore prescribing to newly diagnosed patients only the very expensive combo pill instead of the extremely cheap generic Metformin pill. Don't let your doctor prescribe this combo drug.

And added this:

As of Summer 2011 there is yet another FDA-approved DPP-4 inhibitor drug available that is very similar to Onglyza. It is named Tradjenta. Based on its prescribing information, which you can read HERE, it it shares with Onglyza the characteristics that it makes very little change in blood sugar, costs a fortune, and causes the same significant immune-system related side effects--most notably the permanent sinus headache/runny nose that is a result of DPP-4 inhibition in the sinues--as well as raising the risk of pancreatitis.

In patients whose A1cs averaged 8.1% and whose fasting blood sugar averaged 178.4 mg/dl Trajenta lowered A1c to a still dangerous average 7.5% and lowered the fasting blood sugar to a rampantly damaging average of 165.1 mg/dl.

You can lower your blood sugar far more just by following the advice you'll find HERE.I have heard from hundreds of people who have done just that without any drugs except generic metformin--or no drugs at all.

Chances are there will soon be a metformin-Trajenta combo drug. Avoid it. If you feel that despite the risks you want to take a DPP-4 inhibitor Januvia appears to be the one that lowers blood sugar the best, though it doesn't do all that good a job of it and will end up giving you significant side effects.

4 comments:

gnoj daba said...

I don't understand why negative comments on products such as this one with attempts at exhorting patients to shun such products is even allowed to be posted, yet promotion is not allowed. It is way too partial and perhaps, even unfair not to mention that it took years to develop these products just so people can have new and better options in addressing their ailments. Metformin, too, is a product of years of research and development. It is now available in cheaper versions because of years of experience and more companies producing and marketing. But new products need to be tried and tested too because old products like metformin is still not and will never be enough to answer all of the problems with diabetes.

Jenny said...

Nowhere in the drug approval process does the FDA ask drug companies to prove that a drug is more effective than other drugs.

And in the case of these drugs, the FDA's cancer testing does not test for the mechanism by which they produce cancer, which is turning off a human cancer gene.

It took 14 years to learn that TZD drugs not only made people fat, but killed and maimed them in significant numbers.

Meanswhile the drug companies that made billions selling the TZDs lied about their effects--claiming they rejuvenated beta cells, hid their negative side effects, even threatening organizations whose scientists were researching them with expensive lawsuits, and generally showed that they had no concern for people with diabetes except to profit from them.

All this would make a thinking person cautious about taking these new drugs.

And why do I campaign so tirelessly against dangerous drugs? Well, for starters they've done some very serious irreversible damage to me and people in my family.

Cap'n Jan said...

Again, thank you for this post Jenny.

I hope that your good care of yourself now will allow your body to help itself 'get better'.

Sometimes damage is damage. I will never regrow the cartilage in my knees, but I can keep my weight under control to avoid the worst effects.

Your site is now on my 'look daily' list.

Jenny said...

Cap'n Jan,

If you're on FaceBook, check out the Blood Sugar 101 facebook page, as that is where I post most frequently.