Diabetes is a complicated disease and so are the side effects of certain diabetes medications.

Diabetes medications are available to help diabetic patients keep their blood sugar under control. Medical researchers continue to evaluate the side effects associated with newer diabetes medications like Onglyza.

Onglyza is used in conjunction with diet and exercise to help lower blood sugar in patients with type 2 diabetes. It’s also known by its generic name saxagliptin.

How Diabetes Medications Work

Onglyza is one of a class of diabetes medications known as DPP-4 inhibitors. DPP-4 is an enzyme that stops incretin hormones from stimulating more insulin production, particularly after meals when blood sugar is high.

When a DPP-4 inhibitor like Onglyza does its job, incretin hormones continue to stimulate more insulin production, which helps get more sugar out of the bloodstream.

Since Onglyza relies on the body’s ability to produce its own insulin, it is not approved for use in patients with type 1 diabetes since their bodies can’t make insulin.

Another medication, Kombiglyze XR, uses saxagliptin in combination with metformin. These two diabetes medications use different mechanisms of action to keep blood sugar under control.

Onglyza’s Potential Side Effects

Onglyza is one of a new family of diabetes medications known as incretin mimetics. Since these diabetes medications are relatively new, researchers are still evaluating the risks of long-term side effects associated with them.

Some of the side effects that could be associated with Onglyza and other diabetes medications in its class include:

• Pancreatic cancer. Researchers in 2013 found that diabetes medications like Onglyza could be related to pancreatic cancer. Analysis of the pancreases of patients who had taken incretin-based diabetes medications revealed they had developed pre-cancerous cells. The researchers also found small tumors that, while benign, had the potential to become malignant. Reports submitted to the FDA by Onglyza patients have also described cases of pancreatitis, which can be a precursor to pancreatic cancer.
• Heart failure. Also in 2013, another study found a possible link between diabetes medications like Onglyza and heart failure. The researchers had been watching for a connection between drugs like Onglyza and heart attack. While they found no significantly higher incidence of heart attack, the researchers noted that patients who used DPP-4 inhibitors like Onglyza were more likely to be hospitalized for heart failure. In April 2015, an FDA panel recommended the agency require a warning on the label for Onglyza to let patients and doctors know about the associated risk of heart failure.
• Thyroid cancer. Recent studies of other incretin mimetic diabetes medications similar to Onglyza have revealed higher instances of thyroid cancer associated with those drugs. More studies are underway to assess the risk of thyroid cancer posed by Onglyza and other incretin drugs.

One patient’s death related to heart failure is the subject of an Onglyza lawsuit filed by the patient’s daughter. In that case, the patient developed heart failure the year after she began to take Onglyza in 2011. After two hospitalizations, she died in October 2013. The patient’s daughter, plaintiff Rochelle G., is now seeking to hold manufacturer AstraZeneca responsible for her mother’s heart failure and related death.