Research in the recent issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association found that intensive-dose statin therapy increased the risk for type 2 diabetes:Risk of Incident Diabetes With Intensive-Dose Compared With Moderate-Dose Statin Therapy, JAMA, June 22, 2011
The study was a meta-analysis, a study of studies, in this case 5 statin trials that included over 32,700 participants. Compared with moderate-dose therapy, the high-dose statins increased the risk for diabetes by a small but significant 12%.
In an interview with HeartWire, Lead investigator Dr. Kausik Ray said:
"However, lowering LDL-cholesterol levels is probably more important than the increase in blood-sugar levels."In fact, those on high-dose statins lowered their cardiovascular events such as heart attacks by 16% compared with those on moderate-dose statins.
Daily intake of 80 mg of drugs such as Lipitor (atorvastatin), Pravachol (pravastatin), or Zocor (simvastatin) was considered high-dose therapy.
There was no mechanism proposed for the increased diabetes risk, however the New York Times' Well blog stated:
"Animal studies suggest that statins can increase muscle resistance to insulin, resulting in higher levels of circulating blood sugar."
