Thiazolidinediones, Metformin, and Outcomes in Older Patients With Diabetes and Heart Failure
Abstract
BACKGROUND: Insulin-sensitizing drugs of the thiazolidinedione class and metformin are commonly prescribed to treat diabetes in patients with heart failure despite strong warnings from the Food and Drug Administration against this practice. Whether this results in adverse outcomes is unknown. METHODS AND RESULTS: We conducted a retrospective cohort study of 16,417 Medicare beneficiaries with diabetes discharged after hospitalization with the principal discharge diagnosis of heart failure. The association between antidiabetic drug prescriptions and outcomes was assessed in multivariable hierarchical Cox proportional hazards models, with adjustment for patient, physician, and hospital variables and accounting for the clustering of patients within hospitals. The primary outcome of the study was time to death due to all causes. Secondary outcomes included time to readmission for all causes or for heart failure. Crude 1-year mortality rates were lower among the 2226 patients treated with a thiazolidinedione (30.1%) or the 1861 treated with metformin (24.7%) compared with that among the 12,069 treated with neither insulin-sensitizing drug (36.0%, P= or <0.0001 for both comparisons). In multivariable models, treatment with the thiazolidinediones (hazard ratio [HR] 0.87, 95% CI 0.80 to 0.94) or metformin (HR=0.87, 95% CI 0.78 to 0.97) was associated with significantly lower risks of death. There was no association with treatment with sulfonylureas (HR=0.99, 95% CI 0.91 to 1.08) or…
How strong is the evidence?
Evidence Hub reads this as a randomized trial, done in people. Its evidence level is 2 of 5 (High · randomized trial). Randomized trials of a reasonable size are the strongest single-study design. Reported size: 2,226 participants or records.
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