Diabetes drug reduces deaths, but doctors aren't sure how

A diabetes pill has been shown, for the first time, to reduce deaths among patients taking it. It's a big finding — and Lilly, the drug company that makes it, is trumpeting the results. The drug, called Jardiance, lowered heart disease deaths by 38 percent and deaths from any cause by 32 percent over three years, an international group of researchers reported in The New England Journal of Medicine. But doctors are not sure how the drug is doing it. There are many different classes of diabetes drugs, and they're designed to lower levels of sugar in the blood. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration approves them based on how well they do this.