Wednesday Aug 5, 2014 (foodconsumer.org) -- A new study recently published in BMC Cardiovascular Disorders suggests that using cholesterol lowering statins may increase risk of type 2 diabetes mellitus.

The study led by scientists at London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine in London, UK shows that statin use was correlated with an 57% increased risk of type 2 diabetes mellitus and longer use was linked to a greater increase in the risk.

The increase in risk of type 2 diabetes mellitus appeared to be smaller among those with hypertension or cardiovascular disease.  In these groups, the increase in the risk was apparent only after five or more years of treatment with statins.

The population based cohort study was based on data from 2,016,094 individuals aged 30 to 85 who were registered in the Clinical Practice Research Datalink (CPRD).   Statin users started statin treatment in 1989 to 2009 and got followed up through Dec. 2011.  For the study, one statin user was compared with five nonusers. Of 430,890 statin users, 130,395 developed type 2 diabetes mellitus.

The study concludes that statin use is correlated with increased risk of type 2 diabetes mellitus and the increase risk was greater among people with hypertension or cardiovascular disease.

It should be noted that the study was not a trial, meaning that it could not prove that statin use is the cause for the increase in the risk of diabetes mellitus even though the possibility cannot be excluded either.

In previous studies, use of statins has been associated with a number of chronic diseases including breast cancer, musculoskeletal conditions and muscle pain.  (David Liu)

Macedo AF1, Douglas I, Smeeth L, Forbes H, Ebrahim S.  Statins and the risk of type 2 diabetes mellitus: cohort study using the UK clinical practice pesearch datalink.  BMC Cardiovasc Disord. 2014 Jul 15;14(1):85.