the Mediator, this anti-diabetic drug hijacked as an appetite suppressant, has been suspected of causing high blood pressure and valve disease, damage to the heart valves. A new study published in the British scientific journal European Heart Journal confirms the association between the drug withdrawn from the market in 2010 and the risk of heart valve disease.
The team of Professor Christophe Tribouilloy, head of the cardiology center at the University Hospital of Amiens, compared the state of health of 835 patients who took benfluorex, the Mediator molecule, to a group of 376 diabetics who did not take Mediator .
Only one patient presented the characteristics of a drug-induced valve (0.26% of the sample) in the diabetic group. On the other hand, they were 7% of the group who took Mediator to have developed a valve disease, reports the site Pourquoidocteur. A “high” rate, according to the researchers.
Valvular heart disease can be recognized by certain symptoms such as shortness of breath, heart palpitations, fatigue or a murmur in the heart. A cardiac ultrasound then makes it possible to diagnose the valve disease.
1,300 long-term heart valve deaths
How can the Mediator cause heart valve disease? Doctor Georges Chiche was the first doctor to establish the link between this drug and this heart disease. He explained to Figaro in 2010, the harmful impact of benfluorex on patients: “The Mediator would have had the effect of making rigid and hard the aortic or mitral valves most often. They then become fibrous, lose their flexibility. They are not more able to close properly. “
Last April, a judicial expert report on the Mediator presented by the Paris prosecutor’s office concluded that 220 to 300 short-term deaths were attributable to a valve disease caused by the Mediator. In the long term, the number of victims could be much higher, from 1,300 to 1,800.
