Gert van der Hoek
In Memoriam - Editor, Senior Moderator
[h=1]Statins DOUBLE the risk of diabetes according to 'alarming' 10-year study [/h]
PUBLISHED: 14:19 GMT, 31 January 2016 |
Healthy patients taking the heart drug statins have a significantly higher risk of new diabetes and a very high risk of serious diabetic complications, a study has found.
The research, published in the Journal of General Internal Medicine in May 2015, tracked individuals in a database for almost ten years. It discovered statin users had a higher incidence of diabetes and also weight gain.
Patients using the drugs were also more likely than the others to develop diabetes with complications including eye, nerve and kidney damage.
Professor Ishak Mansi, a heart specialist at the University of Texas who led the study, said the association between statin use and diabetes complications 'was never shown before.
Users of statins were more than twice as likely to develop diabetes and were 250 percent more likely than their non-statin-using counterparts to develop diabetes with complications.
Patients included in the study were identified as healthy adults and researchers assessed of 3982 statin users and 21,988 non users over the decade.
'The risk of diabetes with statins has been known, but until now it was thought that this might be due to the fact that people who were prescribed statins had greater medical risks to begin with,' said Dr Mansi in a statement.
Mansi told the Express that those results are 'alarming'.
He added that drugs may be doing more harm than good for people at low risk of heart disease: 'I am sceptical about the prescribing guidelines for people at lower risk (of heart disease). I am concerned about the long term effects on the huge population of healthy people on these drugs who continue for many years.'
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- - Research shows link between statins and diabetes
- - Patients taking the heart drug also more likely to develop complications
- - Statin use has also been associated with weight gain
- - Study published in May 2015 in the Journal of General Internal Medicine
PUBLISHED: 14:19 GMT, 31 January 2016 |
Healthy patients taking the heart drug statins have a significantly higher risk of new diabetes and a very high risk of serious diabetic complications, a study has found.
The research, published in the Journal of General Internal Medicine in May 2015, tracked individuals in a database for almost ten years. It discovered statin users had a higher incidence of diabetes and also weight gain.
Patients using the drugs were also more likely than the others to develop diabetes with complications including eye, nerve and kidney damage.
Professor Ishak Mansi, a heart specialist at the University of Texas who led the study, said the association between statin use and diabetes complications 'was never shown before.
Users of statins were more than twice as likely to develop diabetes and were 250 percent more likely than their non-statin-using counterparts to develop diabetes with complications.
Patients included in the study were identified as healthy adults and researchers assessed of 3982 statin users and 21,988 non users over the decade.
'The risk of diabetes with statins has been known, but until now it was thought that this might be due to the fact that people who were prescribed statins had greater medical risks to begin with,' said Dr Mansi in a statement.
Mansi told the Express that those results are 'alarming'.
He added that drugs may be doing more harm than good for people at low risk of heart disease: 'I am sceptical about the prescribing guidelines for people at lower risk (of heart disease). I am concerned about the long term effects on the huge population of healthy people on these drugs who continue for many years.'
[FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]MORE ....[/FONT]