Acarbose: uses, dosing, side effects & brands
Acarbose is a medicine sold in the U.S. under one brand. Below: what the FDA label says, every product that contains it, what the pills look like, and its recall record.
Key facts
- Available as
- Tablet
- Sold as
- Precose
- Prescription?
- Prescription only
- Generic available?
- Not in our catalog
- What the pharmacy pays
- about $5 for a 30-count supply — not your price
Every acarbose product we track (1)
Same active ingredient — different manufacturer, form, price and FDA recall record. That last one is what our independent score measures.
Only one: Precose.
What acarbose pills look like
Imprint codes, colour and shape from the FDA’s labelling data. Match the imprint on your pill — or search any imprint.
How long acarbose keeps
No acarbose label we read sets a separate limit for after opening, but they do specify how it must be stored — and the stability behind any date assumes those conditions.
Does acarbose expire? The in-use limits and storage rules from its labelsAcarbose and breastfeeding
From LactMed, the US National Library of Medicine’s Drugs and Lactation Database — quoted, not rewritten.
Full LactMed record for acarbose: levels in milk, effects in breastfed infants, and the drugs it would consider insteadBecause less than 2% of a dose of acarbose is absorbed from the mother's gastrointestinal tract, it is unlikely that any drug reaches the infant through breastmilk.
National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, record revised May 15, 2026. LactMed states its information is not a substitute for professional judgement.
What people report to the FDA about acarbose
The FDA Adverse Event Reporting System (FAERS) collects reports from patients and clinicians. It holds 3,977 reports naming acarbose, and the FDA flagged 87% of those reports as serious. The effects reported most often — leaving out reports about overdose, misuse or the condition being treated, which dominate the raw list for common medicines:
- hypoglycaemia279 reports
- nausea214 reports
- blood glucose increased212 reports
- dizziness166 reports
- diarrhoea161 reports
- vomiting157 reports
- acute kidney injury143 reports
- fall136 reports
Read these as a signal, not a rate. A report does not mean acarbose caused the effect — anyone can file one, and many describe people taking several medicines for several conditions. Crucially there is no denominator: FAERS does not record how many people took the drug, so these counts cannot be turned into “X% of patients” — a bigger number often just means a more widely used or more talked-about drug. Duplicates exist, and publicity drives reporting. For what is actually established, read the FDA label section above.
Source: openFDA drug/event (FAERS), retrieved July 25, 2026.
Related calculators
Frequently asked questions
Can you take acarbose with other medicines?
It depends on the medicine. We check it against the FDA labels rather than guessing: our interaction checker searches each drug's own label for the other and quotes what it says, naming the section it came from. Run acarbose against whatever else you take — and remember that a label not naming a drug is not the same as that combination being safe.
What forms does acarbose come in?
Across the brands we track, acarbose is currently marketed as tablet, per the FDA's National Drug Code Directory. Each form is dosed differently — follow the label for the exact product you were prescribed.
Is there a generic acarbose?
We do not currently list a generic-labelled acarbose product. That does not always mean none exists — it means none appears under a generic name in the FDA data we track. Ask your pharmacist.
Cite this page
- APA
- pharmaranks. (2026, July 24). Acarbose: uses, dosing, side effects & brands. https://pharmaranks.com/drugs/acarbose
- MLA
- “Acarbose: uses, dosing, side effects & brands.” pharmaranks, 24 July 2026, https://pharmaranks.com/drugs/acarbose.
We summarise public FDA and NIH sources — for a clinical claim, cite the primary source we link to as well.
Sources: FDA openFDA drug label, National Drug Code Directory, and Enforcement (recall) database. This page reproduces public FDA data and is not medical advice. Dosing is set by your prescriber.
Read the full FDA label for acarbose on DailyMed (NIH) ↗.