| Think about statins for every diabetic - group
By Maggie Fox
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Almost everyone with diabetes should consider
taking a statin drug to lower cholesterol, even if they already
have low cholesterol levels, the American Diabetes Association advised
on Thursday.
Diabetic patients are at such high risk of heart disease that the
statins almost certainly will do them some good, the group said
in its latest treatment guidelines.
People with diabetes should all consider taking a daily aspirin,
too, the new guidelines say.
"It may well be that everybody with diabetes should be on
a statin," said Dr. Nathaniel Clark, vice-president for clinical
affairs for the group. "We know that statins lower low-density
cholesterol but they may also have some other qualities that have
not been tested," Clark said in a telephone interview.
An estimated 18 million Americans have diabetes, 90 to 95 percent
of them type 2 diabetes. This once was called adult-onset diabetes
but it is showing up in children more often now.
Type 1 diabetes is an autoimmune disease caused when the body mistakenly
destroys insulin-producing pancreas cells.
Type 2 diabetes is strongly associated with being overweight and
sedentary, and arises not from a lack of insulin but from a poor
response to insulin. It greatly raises the risk for heart disease,
stroke and heart attack and can also lead to blindness and limb
loss.
Clark said the Association decided to add statins to the guidelines
after seeing the results of a British study, published earlier this
year in the Lancet medical journal, that showed people who took
statins had a one-third lower risk of stroke.
Their study included adults over the age of 40 whose total cholesterol
levels were as low as 135 -- considered extremely low by most standards.
Among normal healthy people, doctors do not usually consider giving
drugs to lower cholesterol until total levels hit 200.
But Clark said diabetics are a special case.
"It is now a consensus that having diabetes is the equivalent
in terms of cardiovascular risk of already having had a heart attack,"
Clark said. "We are talking about what we would consider a
high-risk group."
Statins are becoming more and more popular with doctors as study
after study finds they can lower the risk of a range of heart conditions
and may also help patients with multiple sclerosis and Alzheimer's
disease.
Worldwide, 25 million people take statins, but up to 200 million
could be eligible.
The drugs are not cheap, however. The United States already spends
$12.5 billion on statin drugs, more than any other type of medicine,
and the drugs can cause a rare type of side-effect called rhabdomyolysis,
which damages muscles.
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