According to research published early online in the Archives of Internal Medicine, statins may be linked to an increased risk of diabetes mellitus in postmenopausal women.

An evaluation of data obtained from the WHI study, which involved 161,808 postmenopausal women aged 50-79 years was undertaken. Statin use was captured at enrolment and year 3, and incident DM status was determined annually from enrolment.

A total of 153,840 women were identified as not having DM at baseline, and 7.04% of patients were reported to be taking a statin. The researchers reported that there were 10,242 incident cases of self-reported DM over 1,004,466 person-years of follow-up. Statin use at baseline was associated with an increased risk of DM (hazard ratio [HR], 1.71; 95% CI, 1.61-1.83), and this association remained after adjusting for other potential confounders (multivariate-adjusted HR, 1.48; 95% CI, 1.38-1.59) and was observed for all types of statin medications.

The authors concluded that statins appear to be associated with an increased risk of DM, although current American Diabetes Association guidelines for primary and secondary prevention should not change, as  statins address the cardiovascular consequences of DM. Additionally, current American Diabetes Association guidelines for primary and secondary prevention should not change and guidelines for statin use in non-diabetic populations should not change.  However, further studies may be needed to clarify DM risk, and identify management strategies to optimise treatment with statins.