Research

Hormonal

Statin therapy causes a moderate, dose-dependent increase in the diagnosis of new-onset diabetes and worsening glycaemia, with high-intensity regimens producing a 36% relative increase compared to a 10% increase for low/moderate-intensity regimens.

If you are taking statins, be aware that they can slightly raise your blood sugar, especially at higher doses. This increases your risk of being diagnosed with diabetes, particularly if your blood sugar was already near the threshold. However, the heart protection benefits of statins far outweigh this small risk. Regular monitoring of your blood sugar is recommended.

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allocation to low-intensity or moderate-intensity statin therapy resulted in a 10% proportional increase in new-onset diabetes... and allocation to high-intensity statin therapy resulted in a 36% proportional increase
Christina Reith et al. · The Lancet Diabetes & Endocrinology · 2024

Why this rating

Individual participant data meta-analysis of large-scale randomised blinded trials.

Source

Effects of statin therapy on diagnoses of new-onset diabetes and worsening glycaemia in large-scale randomised blinded statin trials: an individual participant data meta-analysis

Christina Reith et al. · The Lancet Diabetes & Endocrinology · 2024

DOI 10.1016/s2213-8587(24)00040-8

Meta-analysis · 23 studiesCited 132×
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DOI resolved against Crossref · corpus check 2026-06-10

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