Statins might be the answer to microvascular complications in diabetes, a new study states.
Researchers aimed to find out the effect of statins on small blood vessel (or microvascular) complications, such as eye, nerve and kidney disease in individuals with diabetes.
Professor Borge G. Nordestgaard, chief physician in clinical biochemistry at Copenhagen University Hospital, said that the team examined the hypothesis that individuals taking a statin before a diabetes diagnosis might be at increased risk of developing microvascular complications. This was because high levels of blood glucose are associated with microvascular disease and statins can possibly increase glucose levels.
For the study, the researchers randomly selected 60 000 participants from all patients with diabetes. They were aged 40 years or older and diagnosed with diabetes between January 1996 and December 2009.
The microvascular outcomes of 15,679 patients who had used statins regularly before their diabetes diagnosis were compared with 47,037 patients who had not used statins prior to diagnosis.
According to the study findings, over a median follow-up of 2.7 years (maximum 13 years), people who used statins were 34 percent less likely to be diagnosed with diabetic neuropathy (nerve disease that can lead to foot problems that require amputation), 40 percent less likely to develop diabetic retinopathy (damage to the retina that can lead to blindness) and had a 12 percent reduced chance of gangrene compared to those who had not received statins.
But the risk of diabetic nephropathy (kidney disease) was similar between the groups, researchers noted.
The study was published in The Lancet Diabetes and Endocrinology.
