Statin use has been linked to an increased risk of developing type 2 diabetes, according to research findings from the Diabetes Prevention Program Research Group and published online in BMJ Open Diabetes Research & Care.
For the study, the research team — led by Jill Crandall, MD, of the Albert Einstein College of Medicine — recruited 3,237 patients at high-risk of type 2 diabetes, all of whom had elevated body mass indexes and blood sugar levels.
Participants were randomly given different interventions to prevent type 2 diabetes, including an intensive lifestyle program, a metformin treatment or a placebo drug. They were then monitored for 10 years.
Fewer than 4 percent of participants took statins — or a drug classified as lowering lipid levels — at the onset of the study, although this increased to nearly 33 percent of participants after 10 years.
The researchers noted statin use heightened participants risk for developing type 2 diabetes by 36 percent compared to those who did not take the drug. However, this was an observational study, and no causal link between statin use and diabetes risk can be made. The researchers do suggest that statins can impair insulin production.
"For individual patients, a potential modest increase in diabetes risk clearly needs to be balanced against the consistent and highly significant reductions in myocardial infarction, stroke and cardiovascular death associated with statin treatment," the paper reads. "Nonetheless, glucose status should be monitored and healthy lifestyle behaviors reinforced in high-risk patients who are prescribed statins for CVD prophylaxis."
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