Could Statins INCREASE Your Risk for Heart Disease?

I’m not a huge fan of statins. I’m betting a lot of people reading my newsletter are not fans either.

Of course my emails are not meant to be medical advice. It’s just that a recent study I found made me start thinking.

The class of drugs known as statins have pretty much one purpose – to lower cholesterol and decrease your risk for cardiovascular disease.

There’s a lot of arguments back and forth about whether lowering cholesterol will really reduce your risk of heart disease.

Along comes this study. The title is “Assessing the Link Between Statins and Insulin Intolerance: A Systematic Review”.

The study was a meta-analysis. That means it was a review of many other studies on the same subject to look for trends and conclusions. The findings may not be apparent in the smaller studies.

The group of studies in the analysis had a total of 46 million people. It was a pretty decent-sized sample.

The results were that statins caused a decrease in ‘insulin sensitivity and an increase in insulin resistance’. Seems like kind of the same thing to me.

Anyway, the study went on to say that statins may increase your chances of contracting diabetes. Certain providers are already hesitant of giving statins to their patients who have diabetes. This study helped to confirm their fear.

According to Johns Hopkins:

“People with diabetes are 2 to 4 times more likely than others to develop cardiovascular disease. Because this risk is so high, cardiovascular disease remains the most common cause of death in people with diabetes.”

Soooo…if diabetes makes you 2 to 4 times as likely to contract cardiovascular disease…and statins cause insulin resistance which can lead to diabetes..

…wouldn’t it make sense that statins can increase your chances of cardiovascular disease?

The analysis stated that some studies showed that some statins increased insulin resistance and others may lower it:

“Simvastatin and rosuvastatin treatments have reduced insulin sensitivity, whereas pravastatin treatments have increased it”.

Other studies stated that statins can have health benefits in other ways besides lowering cholesterol:

“Statins have other health advantages besides just lowering cholesterol, such as reducing systemic inflammation and oxidative stress and improving endothelial function, all of which would improve rather than hinder carbohydrate metabolism”.

The study just stated that. It was not analyzing the studies for anything other than insulin resistance. It did not have data to back this statement up.

I know I’ve had several residents who were diabetics and had either heart attacks or strokes in their history.

When I discussed the statins with their doctors, the doctors did not talk about their diabetes. They said we need to leave them on their statins due to a history of cardiovascular disease.

To me it says everyone really has to take charge of their own medical decisions. Doctors don’t have all the answers.

Oh if you’re interested in the study, you can find it here.