Avandia, just one of the pharmaceutical drugs linked to horrible side effects in recent years, now may have yet another defensive posture to put up -- against the physician industry.

A group of doctors has asked the Food and Drug Administration to include more warning verbiage on Avandia's label, but it's not your normal "may be dangerous" type of warning. Avandia is marketed as a diabetes drug.

The group would like to include a statement that a vegan diet will produce a more "effective approach" to lowering blood sugar than taking Avandia itself. Wow. That's pretty powerful coming from a physician's group, and I am all for it. Nutrition changes could help so many people with diseases, but "the pill" is just too convenient for the lazy butts of many of us.

If you've taken Avandia, what do you think about this proposal? It's food for thought, big time.

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The year 2007 is coming to a close and it's time for the year-end wrap ups. There were a lot of important health stories in 2007 -- MRSA, food recalls, toy recalls, etc -- and now seems like the perfect time to find out which ones made the biggest impact. CNN recently listed their top health stories of 2007. Here's their list, along with our take on the same topics:

• Governor Rick Perry mandates HPV vaccine for girls and raises a ruckus in Texas.
• Walter Reed Army Medical Center comes under scrutiny after poor conditions are reported.
• Cats and dogs are killed by contaminated pet food manufactured in China. Several food and toy recalls follow.
• A patient with drug resistant TB leaves the country, then returns, risking the infection of fellow airline passengers and drawing attention to this rare disease.
• Performance-enhancing drugs make major headlines. Marion Jones is stripped of her Olympic medal.
• About 21.7 pounds of ground beef were recalled due to fear of E. coli contamination. Other food recalls follow.
• FDA experts recommend that cold medication not be given to young children.
• MRSA -- a drug resistant staph infection -- gets attention when it's learned that the infection is killing more Americans each year than AIDS.
• Avandia gets a black box warning that it may be associated with heart attacks.
• A stem cell breakthrough comes when scientists reprogram skin cells to perform like stem cells.

What about you? What was your favorite health story of the year?

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GlaxoSmithKline's Avandia diabetes drug has had so many bad marks against it recently that it's amazing anyone is still buying it. Well, here's another.

In a recent report, the diabetes drug sold by prescription was linked with an increase in osteoporosis risk after being connected to increased heart disease risk this summer.

The newer study did admit that the osteoporosis finding was indeed a slight mistake, and it was surprised that earlier studies had not connected the use of Avandia with osteoporosis. For those who are older and at risk of fractures already, the taking of Avandia should be discussed with your doctor at length.

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Avandia, the prescription drug used to control diabetes in many U.S. patients, will have a new warning label affixed soon.

The problem is, the message may be more confusing than helpful. The U.S. government stated this week that the new warning label specifically for Avandia will say that the drug may or may not increase the risk of heart attacks. That's comforting.

The FDA concluded that studies on the drug, so far, are very contradictory and an ardent 'heart attack warning' label was not justified. Without further research, it looks like patient confusion on Avandia will only continue to escalate. If you're on the drug, do you feel safe?

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After months and months of scares and media coverage on the possible heart risks of taking the diabetes drug Avandia, a "black box" warning will soon come to that drug's packaging.

The "black box" warnings will contain severe warnings about the possible side effects of taking the drug, and GlaxoSmithKline (the drug's manufacturer) apparently agreed to the addition. It probably knows that not too many patients even pay attention to all the information that comes with their medicines. In my experience, this is certainly true.

If you're a diabetes patient taking Avandia right now, what's your take on this latest development?

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In the ongoing saga surrounding the use of GlaxoSmithKline's diabetes drug -- Avandia -- the FDA has now said that it should stay on the market for now, even with claims of possible heart damage from the drug's side effects.

The regulators who suggested that Avandia stay on the market cited weak evidence leaking the drug to potential heart problems as the basis of their reasoning. Are you convinced?

With over one million Americans using Avandia, the stakes here are enormous. How long will Avandia be on the market? Will it ever be taken off shelves? If so, if there a replacement for those million customers?

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There seems to be quite a bit of news about the negative side effects of many prescription drugs these days, but do these drugs help more people than they hurt?

Avandia, a diabetes drug that has received quite a bit of attention from the media since May, has reportedly helped many patients battle the oft-debilitating conditions that come along with having diabetes. Additionally, the drug has been linked to heart problems like many other prescription drugs before it.

Some will say that a single death caused (or partially caused) by the side effects of a prescription drug is worth it if the drug helps hundreds of thousands at the same time. What do you think? Do the possible benefits of certain drugs outweigh the possible or actual death numbers caused by those same drugs?

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When British pharmaceutical drug giant GlaxoSmithKline reported quarterly earnings the other day, a huge black eye for the company was the sluggish sales of its Avandia diabetes drug since it was found to be linked to potential heart disease in May.

The backlash towards Avandia has grown since then, and now the FDA not only wants a suggestion of a "black box" warning on Avandia packages, but possible other suggestions. Could this lead to a ban of Avandia from U.S. shelves soon like Vioxx years back? I would not be surprised.

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Avandia has come under the microscope in the last month as the Cleveland Clinic attributed the diabetes drug to heart problems. As usual (it seems), there is another party that is refuting that evidence and is saying that there is no significant increase in heart attacks by patients using Avandia.

This time, the British study -- which was funded by a"drug company" -- stated that there was no connection between Avandia use and heart attacks. If the "drug company" was Avandia maker GlaxoSmithKline, is the new study to be believed at all?

Without total and complete transparency here, I would not put much stock on a new study unless conducted without bias by an independent lab/researcher. Just my two cents.

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If you are an Avandia patient who is taking the drug for the treatment of diabetes, there's no urgent need to quit taking the drug, even with recent revelations of heart damage from those that take it.

There's no need to panic, says the doctor who brought up the words about Avandia, and he's joined by other medical experts. In other words, the words "heart damage" should not cause patients to stop taking Avandia out of being scared.

Dr. Steve Nissen, who sounded the alarm on Avandia, said that his findings are valid but must be confirmed by other studies first.

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