Do statins really cause diabetes?: A meta-analysis of major randomized controlled clinical trials

OBJECTIVES: To investigate and establish the relationship between the use of statin therapy and the risk of development of diabetes. METHODS: PubMed and the Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Trials was searched for randomized controlled end-point trials of statins, with more than 1000 subjects and a minimum of one-year follow-up period, published until August 2015. The odds ratio (OR) of diabetes incidence with overall statin therapy as well as with different statins in question was calculated through random effect meta-analysis model. RESULTS: Fourteen studies were included in the analysis with a total of 94,943 participants. Of these, 2392 subjects developed incident diabetes in the statin and 2167 in the placebo groups during a 4-year follow-up. The OR of diabetes incidence with statin therapy was significantly higher as compared with the placebo group (OR=1.11; 95% confidence interval = 1.0 to 1.2; p=0.007). There was an insignificant level of heterogeneity between the included trials (Cochran Q= 19.463, p=0.109, I(2)=33.20). Subgroup analysis showed that only 2 statins namely, atorvastatin (OR= 1.29; p=0.042) and rosuvastatin (OR = 1.17; px=0.01) were significantly associated. CONCLUSION: Statin therapy can slightly increase risk of incident diabetes in subjects with hypercholesterolemia.