New Ohio State study finds possible connection between statins, diabetes
COLUMBUS —
People who were prescribed statins to lower their cholesterol had at least twice the risk of developing type 2 diabetes as other patients, according to a recent Ohio State University study of thousands of patients’ health records.
The study, published in May in the journal Diabetes Metabolism Research and Reviews, raises concerns about how efforts to reduce heart disease might be contributing to another health issue.
More than a quarter of middle-age adults use statins to reduce the risk of heart attack or stroke by lowering cholesterol and blood pressure.
The study included the health records of 4,683 patients between 2011 and 2014. Of those patients, 755 were prescribed statins. Researchers obtained the patients’ data through a private insurance plan.
Researchers also found that statin users were 6.5% more likely to have a high HbA1c value, which measures blood sugar levels in a test for diabetes.
Researchers said statins are effective in preventing heart attacks and strokes but doctors should monitor patients and give them guidance on diet and exercise.
“I hope it gets physicians thinking more about statin use and what other things could be supplemented for statin use, such as physical fitness or diet,” said Victoria Zigmont, who led the study as an Ohio State graduate student in public health. “I also think that we need more research around the metabolic changes that occur after statin use.”
Zigmont’s study was done retrospectively, because in an active study patients would be asked to stop taking their statins, which could have caused heart issues.
Zigmont, who completed her undergraduate degree at the University of Connecticut and her master’s at Southern Connecticut State, knew she could put her educational background to good use in this study.
“Cardiovascular disease is the No. 1 killer among people in the U.S., so it just was ripe for investigation,” said Zigmont, who is now a tenure-track assistant professor at Southern Connecticut State. “I was trained as a chronic disease epidemiologist for the most part, so it was a good opportunity to put the skills that I learned during my Ph.D. to good use.”
Because of the nature of the study, Zigmont ran into some limitations. The researchers didn’t know any of the patient’s risk of diabetes at the beginning of the study, and they didn’t have any information about diet or physical activity.
Zigmont said more study is needed.
“One of the limitations of doing a study that’s observational in nature is that I was limited by whatever physicians were prescribing,” she said. “I didn’t have enough ability to look at specific statins in my study because whatever physicians happened to prescribe was what I was looking at. I think having more research done that would focus on specific statins may figure out differences in the different types.”