According to a meta-analysis of five clinical trials, high-dose statin therapy is associated with increased risk of new-onset diabetes mellitus. When treating patients with excessive levels of non-HDL cholesterols despite moderate-dose statin therapy, should we prescribe a strategy known to be efficacious, but associated with safety concerns, or should we prescribe combination therapy that has no proven effects on outcomes?
This is a preview of subscription content, access via your institution
Relevant articles
Open Access articles citing this article.
-
Statins exacerbate glucose intolerance and hyperglycemia in a high sucrose fed rodent model
Scientific Reports Open Access 19 June 2019
-
Simvastatin may induce insulin resistance through a novel fatty acid mediated cholesterol independent mechanism
Scientific Reports Open Access 08 September 2015
Access options
Subscribe to this journal
Receive 12 print issues and online access
$209.00 per year
only $17.42 per issue
Buy this article
- Purchase on Springer Link
- Instant access to full article PDF
Prices may be subject to local taxes which are calculated during checkout
References
Preiss, D. et al. Risk of incident diabetes with intensive-dose compared with moderate-dose statin therapy: a meta-analysis. JAMA 305, 2556–2564 (2011).
Sattar, N. et al. Statins and risk of incident diabetes: a collaborative meta-analysis of randomised statin trials. Lancet 375, 735–742 (2010).
Rajpathak, S. N. et al. Statin therapy and risk of developing type 2 diabetes: a meta-analysis. Diabetes Care 32, 1924–1929 (2009).
Sampson, U. K., Linton, M. F. & Fazio, S. Are statins diabetogenic? Curr. Opin. Cardiol. 26, 342–347 (2011).
Ridker, P. M. et al. Rosuvastatin to prevent vascular events in men and women with elevated C-reactive protein. N. Engl. J. Med. 359, 2195–2207 (2008).
Baigent, C. et al. Efficacy and safety of cholesterol-lowering treatment: prospective meta-analysis of data from 90,056 participants in 14 randomised trials of statins. Lancet 366, 1267–1278 (2005).
Study of the Effectiveness of Additional Reductions in Cholesterol and Homocysteine (SEARCH) Collaborative Group et al. Intensive lowering of LDL cholesterol with 80 mg versus 20 mg simvastatin daily in 12,064 survivors of myocardial infarction: a double-blind randomised trial. Lancet 376, 1658–1669 (2010).
US Department of Health and Human Services. Third report of the National Cholesterol Education Program (NCEP) expert panel on detection, evaluation and treatment of high blood cholesterol in adults (Adult Treatment Panel III) Final Report[online], (2002).
ACCORD Study Group et al. Effects of combination lipid therapy in type 2 diabetes mellitus. N. Engl. J. Med. 362, 1563–1574 (2010).
AIM-HIGH Investigators. The role of niacin in raising high-density lipoprotein cholesterol to reduce cardiovascular events in patients with atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease and optimally treated low-density lipoprotein cholesterol. Rationale and study design. The Atherothrombosis Intervention in Metabolic syndrome with low HDL/high triglycerides: Impact on Global Health outcomes (AIM-HIGH). Am. Heart J. 161, 471–477 (2011).
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Ethics declarations
Competing interests
The author declares no competing financial interests.
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Davidson, M. Implications of high-dose statin link with incident diabetes. Nat Rev Cardiol 8, 543–544 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1038/nrcardio.2011.118
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/nrcardio.2011.118
This article is cited by
-
Statins exacerbate glucose intolerance and hyperglycemia in a high sucrose fed rodent model
Scientific Reports (2019)
-
Simvastatin may induce insulin resistance through a novel fatty acid mediated cholesterol independent mechanism
Scientific Reports (2015)