Statins may cut death from heart disease in people with type 2 diabetes

DIABETES DIGEST – July 17, 2014 – If you have type 2 diabetes and are at high risk of heart disease, taking a cholesterol-lowering drug might prolong your life.

A new analysis of data from a study of type 2 diabetes found that the patients with high-risk for cardiovascular disease who were taking cholesterol-lowering statins at the start of the study had a 50 percent greater chance of being alive after the 8-year study as compared to those who weren’t taking the drugs.

The analysis is published in the current online edition of Diabetes Care, and was done by researchers led by Don Bowden, Ph.D. at Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center, Winston-Salem, NC. They studied the data from patients who had participated in the Diabetes Heart Study. 

At the beginning of that study all 371 participants underwent a CT scan to determine levels of coronary artery calcium, a measure of the plaque that hardens arteries and is associated with heart disease. A coronary artery calcium level greater than 1,000 indicates an increased risk for cardiovascular disease.

When the study was over 8 years later, 153 participants had died and 218 survived. When they compared who died and who survived, the only risk factor found to be protective against death was the use of cholesterol-lowering statins at the start of the study.

Heart disease and stroke are the leading causes of death and disability among people with type 2 diabetes, and at least 65 percent of people with diabetes die from some form of heart disease or stroke, according to the American Heart Association.

With a statistic like that and the results of this analysis, the study researchers suggest that more people with type 2 diabetes should be taking statins. Bowden said the study results highlight the importance of widespread prescription of cholesterol-lowering medications among individuals with type 2 diabetes who have existing high cardiovascular disease risk. He noted that previous studies have shown that the rate of statin prescriptions for diabetic patients have been low.

"These data suggest that cholesterol-lowering medications may be used less than recommended and need to be more aggressively targeted as a critical modifiable risk factor," Bowden said.