If you have type 2 diabetes and take any of the following medicines: sitagliptin, saxagliptin, linagliptin, and alogliptin – it is important to know that they may cause joint pain that can be severe and disabling, the US Food and Drug Administration has warned.

“We have added a new Warning and Precaution about this risk to the labels of all medicines in this drug class, called dipeptidyl peptidase-4 (DPP-4) inhibitors,” the USFDA said, adding however that people should not stop taking these medicines but should contact their health care professional right away if they experience severe and persistent joint pain. A caution that people with diabetes in India too could do well to heed and check with their doctors.

Health care professionals should consider DPP-4 inhibitors as a possible cause of severe joint pain and discontinue the drug if appropriate, the FDA adds. DPP-4 inhibitors are used along with diet and exercise to lower blood sugar in adults with type 2 diabetes. When untreated, type 2 diabetes can lead to serious problems, including blindness, nerve and kidney damage, and heart disease. These medicines are available as single-ingredient products and in combination with other diabetes medicines such as metformin.

In a search of the FDA Adverse Event Reporting System database and medical literature, the FDA identified cases of severe joint pain associated with the use of DPP-4 inhibitors. Patients started having symptoms from one day to years after they started taking a DPP-4 inhibitor. After the patients discontinued the DPP-4 inhibitor medicine, their symptoms were relieved, usually in less than a month. Some patients developed severe joint pain again when they restarted the same medicine or another DPP-4 inhibitor, it added.

Source: USFDA

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