Drug can help prevent diabetes, study says.

Byline: Alice Dembner

Sep. 16--Millions of adults at high risk of diabetes could ward off the disease by taking a drug commonly used to treat it, according to the largest diabetes prevention study yet conducted.

The drug, rosiglitazone or Avandia, taken for three years, reduced the risk of getting diabetes by 62 percent, according to a report published yesterday. The results, which come as the rate of diabetes soars worldwide, match those achieved by a moderate program of exercise and diet that doctors have had trouble getting their patients to comply with.

"Regrettably, people aren't leaping off the couch" despite the evidence that exercise can prevent diabetes, said Dr. Larry C. Deeb, president of medicine and science for the American Diabetes Association. "Now we know that drug interventions work. We don't want to fix everything with a pill, but the ravages of this epidemic suggest that anything and everything is fair game."

In the United States, more than 21 million people have diabetes, a disease in which the body cannot process the sugar produced by digesting food.…