Yes — the headline is referring to rosiglitazone (Avandia), an older type 2 diabetes medicine. The claim is based on a 2020 analysis, not a brand-new 48,000-patient study. Researchers examined more than 130 trials involving over 48,000 adults.
What did the study find?
Among the trials with individual patient-level data, rosiglitazone was associated with a 33% higher relative risk of a combined cardiovascular outcome. That combined outcome included heart attack, heart failure, cardiovascular death, and non-cardiovascular death.
The particularly concerning finding was heart failure, which had an estimated 54% higher relative risk in that analysis.
But “33% higher risk” needs context
It does not mean that 33% of people taking the drug developed a serious heart problem. In the individual-level data, there were 274 events among 11,837 rosiglitazone patients versus 219 among 9,319 control patients.
Rosiglitazone is also not a commonly prescribed diabetes drug today in many countries, so this headline can sound more alarming and current than the underlying research actually is.
