A Food and Drug Administration (FDA) panel of outside medical experts Wednesday said the agency should urge pharmaceutical companies to conduct stricter safety tests before marketing new diabetes drugs.

FDA advisers voted 14-2 that the FDA should require drug makers to show that experimental diabetes drugs don't increase cardiovascular risks. Many diabetes drugs lower blood sugar but they still pose risks for the heart

A drug commonly used to treat Type 2 diabetes in adults has been found to have links to possible bone fragility and bone loss.

The drug, according to a study published in Nature Magazine, has been identified as Avandia, more commonly known as rosiglitazone

Popular diabetes drug Avandia will carry a revised "black box" warning noting about the heart attack risk associated with it, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) said on Wednesday.

Avandia, a drug used to treat type 2 diabetes, has been linked to the risk of heart failure and, more recently, heart attack

President George W. Bush has signed into law a bill that gives the FDA the power to require drug companies to do more studies on the safety of medicine, if it is necessary, and to mandate new warnings of labels.

The legislation Bush signed into law on Thursday also requires drug companies to make public the results of clinical trials showing how their drugs performed and authorizes the Food and Drug Administration to fine drug companies to force them to comply

Cleveland researchers have found that the widely used diabetes pill Actos appears to lower a patient's chances of death by a heart attack or stroke, unlike its close competitor Avandia. However, Actos also carries an increased risk of nonfatal heart failure, the analysis showed, confirming earlier studies.

Researchers analyzed 19 clinical trials of the drug Actos and concluded that the medicine carries cardiovascular benefits not seen in other diabetes drugs