Study recommends cholesterol reducing drugs, despite diabetes risk

After the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) forced manufacturers to slap a warning sticker on cholesterol-reducing statin pills, some people were hesitant to buy Lipitor and other statins. Though proven to lower the chances of heart attack and stroke, they were thought to cause the type of blood sugar increase that could lead a person to buy Actos and insulin injections for diabetes. However, a study about to be published in The Lancet indicates that the chances of statins causing diabetes are only pertinent to people already at a high risk of developing an insulin deficiency. 

Scientists gathered their information from records from 2008, charting the events in the lives of 17,000 individuals taking statins. The data indicate that patients with high risk for developing diabetes were 39 percent less prone to heart illness, and 17 percent more likely to keep living. Meanwhile, subjects with a less than high risk of diabetes were more than 50 percent less likely to develop a heart condition. The latter group's chances of getting diabetes did not change while on statins. 

"From my perspective, the clinical message is very simple. The cardiovascular benefits of statins outweigh the diabetes hazard, even in those with the highest risk of developing diabetes," said Paul Ridker from Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston, quoted by WebMD.

According to the news source, over 20 million Americans are prescribed statins to curb their chances of having a heart attack or stroke.

Statistics from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) show that heart disease was the cause of almost 25 percent of all deaths in the U.S. in 2008, and it kills more Americans than anything else. Meanwhile, the CDC says diabetes was the seventh leading cause of death in 2007.