In a big clinical trial of insulin-resistant stroke patients, Pioglitazone, a diabetes drug, sold as Actos has been shown to decrease the risk of recurring stroke and heart attack.

Yale University researchers have discovered that the drug reduced the number of cardiovascular events in previous stroke patients by about a quarter in the five-year trial.

In the previous studies, Pioglitazone has been shown to prevent stroke and heart attack in patients suffering from type 2 diabetes, and patients, who face trouble in processing sugar but aren’t diabetic, but was controversial because of elevated risks for heart failure and edema and weight gain.

In 2006, another study showed that the drug cut heart attack and stroke risk but not in the ones, who had never suffered a stroke previously.

In a press release, Dr. Walter Koroshetz, director of the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke said, “This study represents a novel approach to prevent recurrent vascular events by reversing a specific metabolic abnormality thought to increase the risk for future heart attack or stroke”.

To conduct the study appeared in the New England Journal of Medicine, researchers enrolled 3,876 people in seven countries at 167 institutions to get either 45 milligram doses of pioglitazone or a placebo. The study participants didn’t have diabetes but were insulin-resistant for five years.

Among the patients, who received the drug, 9% had suffered either a stroke or heart attack, whereas 11.8%, who were provided with a placebo had either one. Very less that is, 3.8% patients, taking the drug suffered from diabetes, in comparison to 7.7% of placebo patients who suffered from type-2 diabetes.

The researchers said that the drug raised the risk for weight gain, edema and bone fracture, which future work would focus on justifying.