Statin Use Almost Doubles the Risk of Diabetes, Research Finds

Sharon Moore April 20, 2015

Even after taking into consideration other factors like alcohol intake, smoking habit, body mass index, and family history of diabetes, people who take statins (drugs that lower cholesterol), were 46 per cent more likely to develop the said disease, new research found.

This is not the first time that statin use was linked to an increased risk of diabetes. However, previous studies tend to have limitations. For instance, most study populations have included people at high risk of cardiovascular disease, which means that the risk of diabetes in clinical trials is likely to differ from that in the general population. Furthermore, diagnosis of diabetes in these studies were based on self-reported presence of the disease or fasting glucose measurement, which leads to the underestimation of the actual numbers of incident diabetes cases.

In the new study, investigators studied the effects of statin treatment on the risk of developing type 2 diabetes as well as in the deterioration of blood sugar control. They also examined the mechanisms of statin-induced diabetes by evaluating the changes in insulin resistance and secretion among the participants.

Of the study participants, 29% were taking simvastatin, whilst 53% were taking atorvastatin.

Their findings reveal that even after accounting other risk factors, like body mass index, waist circumference, alcohol intake, genetic predisposition to diabetes, and others, statin users were 46% more likely to develop diabetes than those not treated with statins.

Also, decreases in the insulin sensitivity and secretion were dose-dependent for simvastatin and atorvastatin users. Specifically, high-dose simvastatin was linked to 44% increased risk of diabetes, whilst low-dose simvastatin was associated with 28% increased risk.

"The association of statin use with increased risk of developing diabetes is most likely directly related to statins decreasing both insulin sensitivity and secretion.", researchers say.

The new study, carried out by researchers from Institute of Clinical Medicine, University of Eastern Finland and Kuopio University Hospital, Finland, was published in Diabetologia, the journal of the European Association for the Study of Diabetes.

Source of this article: Study shows that use of statins increases risk of developing diabetes by 46 percent