Statin-induced risk of diabetes does not reduce cardiovascular benefits in primary prevention: a 6-year propensity-score matched study in a large population
An erratum to this article was published (Cardiovasc Diabetol, 17 Jul 2025 ↗)
Authors' conclusion
Statin therapy in primary prevention is associated with a higher risk of incident T2D, especially in hypertensive patients. However, since the final CV risk of those who develop T2D during statin treatment was lower than the one required for statin prescription according to the ESC guidelines, indicating that this phenomenon does not impair the benefit in CV prevention associated with the lipid lowering effect of statins.
Study context
- Population
- Individuals without T2D and atherosclerotic CVD (atherosclerotic CV disease (ASCVD)), primary prevention
- Participants
- 119,307 individuals
- Exposure
- Statin therapy vs no statin therapy
- Statin usersn = 90,906
- Controln = 28,401reference
- Outcome
- Incident T2D
Methodological detailspropensity-score matched
- Propensity-score matched
Main finding
As reported in the abstract
Observational data: associations, not effects.
Further findings
Incident T2D, normotensive individuals
- Statin therapy: HR of incident T2D (95% CI 2.11-3.22, p < 0.001); about a 2-fold risk, which was also that of statin-untreated hypertensive patients
- 2.61
Incident T2D, hypertensive population
- Statin therapy: HR of incident T2D
- 4.62 (95% CI 3.75-5.69, p < 0.001)
Cardiovascular (CV) events, statin-treated population only
- In a Cox regression, CV events were significantly associated with age, serum creatinine and incident T2D
- Statin-associated new-onset T2D did not change the population's class of CV risk
- Confirmed at the propensity score matched analysis
Original publication
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