Frightening extent of link between statins, diabetes exposed

I’ve told you before about research proving that cholesterol-lowering statins can cause diabetes.

But even as studies produced alarming results and dire warnings, all the drug companies produced were excuses. They’ve argued that many patients on statins are elderly… or sick… or maybe would have developed diabetes anyway.

But new research out of Texas is the final smoking gun — and it’s pointing directly at that bottle of Lipitor and every other statin drug out there.

It’s the first to prove that statins may be turning thousands of healthy people into diabetics. And the risk may be twice as serious as we were ever led to believe.

Double the trouble

When researchers from the University of Texas Southwestern wanted to understand how statins affected otherwise healthy people, they went to the very best source of information they could find.

And that was the Tricare health system that serves active-duty and retired military members and their families.

Researchers poured through records until they found 26,000 patients who were all free from heart disease, diabetes, and any other chronic health condition. These patients were what the study’s lead author, Dr. Ishak Mansi called “a very healthy population.”

But they didn’t stay that way for long.

Researchers found that once patients started taking statins, their chances of developing new-onset diabetes skyrocketed by 87 percent! That’s nearly twice the 46 percent risk reported in a previous study out of Finland.

And the cases of diabetes Mansi and his colleagues discovered were some of the most serious and hard to manage that you’ll find anywhere. In fact, taking a statin increased the risk of diabetes complications – which can include nerve damage, vision loss, kidney failure, and heart disease – by 250 percent.

People on statins were even more likely to gain weight. The higher your dose, the more pounds you packed on.

We’ve been told for years that statins can lower our cholesterol and help prevent heart problems. So how can they be linked to obesity and diabetes – two of the largest risk factors for cardiovascular disease?

The truth is, statin makers have been lying to us about the heart benefits of their drugs. And the numbers they push in their commercials and brochures rely on little more than carnival tricks.

When researchers from the University of South Florida analyzed the data from statin trials to see if the drugs were truly good for your heart, they found evidence that Big Pharma has been cooking the books.

For example, we’ve been told that the Jupiter trial for Crestor proved that the drug could reduce your chance of having a heart attack by 54 percent. But the Jupiter researchers used something called “relative risk reduction” – a statistical model designed to make the drug look good, even when the benefits are barely measurable.

When the USF researchers crunched those same Jupiter numbers using a more rigorous model, they could hardly find any evidence that Crestor helps your heart.

“Statin advocates have used statistical deception to create the illusion that statins are ‘wonder drugs,’” researchers wrote. And to make sure that happened, the data were manipulated not only to inflate the benefits, but also to downplay the adverse effects.

As the risks of these cholesterol-lowering drugs keep piling up, Dr. Mansi says he’s come to one conclusion. It could cost the drug companies billions, but may save plenty of lives.

“Avoid taking statins if possible.”

Sources:

“Statins strongly linked to increased diabetes risk” May 8, 2015, Business Standard, business-standard.com

Frightening extent of link between statins, diabetes exposed

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Frightening extent of link between statins, diabetes exposed

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