21 May Statin-Related Diabetes Has Same Impact as Non-Statin Diabetes on Heart Health in Women

MedicalResearch.com Interview with:
Yunsheng Ma, MD, PhD MPH
University of Massachusetts Medical School
Worcester

MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings?

Dr. Ma: The cardiovascular benefit of lowering LDL cholesterol with statins exceeds all known risk, even in individuals with < 5% risk of CVD over 5 year. Nevertheless, statins are associated with increased incidence of new-onset diabetes, women were disproportionately at higher risk for diabetes while on statins. However, there are no studies comparing CVD and CVD mortality outcomes for women who develop diabetes while not taking statins, to compare their CVD and CVD mortality outcomes against those who develop diabetes while taking statins.

We hypothesized that new clinical diabetes related to statin use may be milder on CVD. However, our findings did not support this hypothesis, as we discovered that statin-related diabetes is no different from diabetes developed outside statin use in its significant impact on CVD and CVD mortality.

MedicalResearch.com: What should readers take away from your report?

Dr. Ma: The results underscore the importance of prevention, monitoring and detection of diabetes among women, including those who take statin medication.

MedicalResearch.com: What recommendations do you have for future research as a result of this study?

Dr. Ma: As our study is observational, clinical trials are recommended. However, it may not be ethnical to do a trial knowing CVD risk of statin-related diabetes. For women who are at high risk of diabetes and have to be on statin, a combination of statin and a hypoglycemic drug such as metformin may be useful to prevent statin-related diabetes. Development a new line of lipid-lowering medication without elevated blood glucose would be helpful as well.

MedicalResearch.com: Is there anything else you would like to add?

Dr. Ma: As we illustrated in Figure 3 in the article, women with diabetes and not using a statin (b) had the highest 10 years CVD rate, it seems that using statin for women with diabetes (d, and e) does decrease overall CVD compared to women with diabetes who did not use statin. For women without diabetes, women who used statin also reduced CVD compared to women who did not use statin.

Overall, statin use has benefit to the CVD risk, clinicians and patients should not shy away from statin use due to the diabetes findings, however, if we can reduce statin-related diabetes, the benefit will be increased.

MedicalResearch.com: Thank you for your contribution to the MedicalResearch.com community.

Citation:

Source Reference: Ma Y, et al “Impact of incident diabetes on atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease according to statin use history among postmenopausal women” Eur J Epidemiol 2016; DOI: 10.1007/s10654-016-0153-7.

Note: Content is Not intended as medical advice. Please consult your health care provider regarding your specific medical condition and questions.

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Last Updated on May 21, 2016 by Marie Benz MD FAAD