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Some Facts About Avandia

This section will help you learn some facts about Avandia. Together, you and your doctor can make informed decisions about your healthcare.

• Avandia, along with diet and exercise, lowers blood sugar and can help keep it under control.*
• In a large clinical trial in recently diagnosed type 2 diabetes patients, Avandia helped patients maintain blood sugar control for up to five years.
• Avandia works differently by helping your body use its own natural insulin better.
• Avandia is the most studied medicine for type 2 diabetes.
• GSK continues to conduct large clinical trials to provide additional scientific support on both the safety and benefits of Avandia.
• Since 1999, over 64 million prescriptions have been filled for Avandia.
• View the video message on this page from Dr. Ronald Krall, Chief Medical Officer at GSK, to learn more about a recent safety update for Avandia.

*Individual results vary

Next: How Avandia Works

Important Safety Information for Avandia^® (rosiglitazone maleate)

Avandia, along with diet and exercise, helps improve blood sugar control in patients with type 2 diabetes.

Avandia can cause or worsen heart failure. If you have severe heart failure (very poor pumping ability of the heart), you cannot be started on Avandia. Avandia is also not recommended if you have heart failure with symptoms (such as shortness of breath or swelling) even if these symptoms are not severe.

Avandia may increase your risk of other heart problems that occur when there is reduced blood flow to the heart, such as chest pain (angina) or heart attack (myocardial infarction). This risk appeared higher in patients taking medicines called nitrates or insulin. Taking Avandia with insulin or with nitrates is not recommended.

If you have chest pain or a feeling of chest pressure, you should seek immediate medical attention, regardless of what diabetes medicines you are taking.

If you take Avandia, tell your doctor right away if you:

• Have swollen legs or ankles, a rapid increase in weight or difficulty breathing, or unusual tiredness
• Experience changes in vision
• Become pregnant

Review your medical history and tell your doctor if you:

• Have heart failure or other heart problems
• Have liver problems or liver disease
• Are pregnant or are nursing

Women taking Avandia should know that Avandia may increase the risk of pregnancy.

More fractures have been observed in women taking Avandia.

For more information about Avandia, please see Medication Guide. For further information on Avandia, please see full
Prescribing Information.