Share on Facebook
Share on Twitter
Share on LinkedIn
Share by Email
Print
(HealthDay News) — Statins may help prevent microvascular complications associated with diabetes, according to research published online in The Lancet Diabetes & Endocrinology.
The research involved data from Danish clinical registries on more than 60,000 people. The patients were aged 40 years or older and were diagnosed with diabetes between January 1996 and December 2009.
The researchers compared the outcomes of more than 15,500 patients who used statins with those of more than 47,000 patients who were not taking statins.
After a median follow-up of 2.7 years, the researchers found that people who used statins were 34% less likely to be diagnosed with diabetic neuropathy and 40% less likely to develop diabetic retinopathy.
These patients also had a 12% lower risk for gangrene of the foot than those who did not take statins. However, the risk for diabetic nephropathy was not significantly different between the patients who took statins and those who did not.
“Since high levels of blood glucose, the hallmark of diabetes, are linked with microvascular disease, and since statins are suspected of raising glucose levels, we tested the hypothesis that individuals taking a statin before a diagnosis of diabetes might be at increased risk of developing microvascular complications,” study author Borge Nordestgaard, MD, of Copenhagen University Hospital, said in a news release.
“Surprisingly, the results showed that statins decreased, rather than increased, risk of these complications.”
