Should We Care Whether Statins Cause Diabetes?

The last few years have been really rough for medical professionals who treat patients with lipid disorders. One after the other of the different classes of lipid-lowering agents have come under very unfavorable scrutiny. The allegations to date have all followed a common theme, which is that these drugs may do nothing to further reduce cardiovascular (CVD) risk when added to baseline statin therapy. First it was ezetimibe, that benign blocker of cholesterol absorption. Ezetimibe failed to demonstrate an additional risk reduction when added to statin therapy, even though it produces a respectable reduction in low-density lipoprotein cholesterol (LDL-C) levels. Then it was fenofibrate’s turn to be discredited.