– VASIL DIMITROV/ ISTOCK – Archivo
MADRID, 30 Dic. (EUROPA PRESS) –
People with type 2 diabetes often face important decisions about how to prevent long-term cardiovascular complications. One of the most common dilemmas is whether certain preventive treatments are necessary even when the risk of heart disease is low.
A PREVENTIVE APPROACH FOR ALL PATIENTS
Recently, a large study has analyzed the effect of a widely used drug in cardiovascular prevention. Their results could offer valuable information for patients and professionals about the most effective strategy to reduce risks, without compromising safety.
Statins significantly reduce risk of death and major cardiovascular events in adults with type 2 diabetes, even in those with a low predicted 10-year cardiovascular risk, according to a extensive study cohort study conducted by researchers from the University of Hong Kong (China).
The findings, published in the Annals of Internal Medicine, dispel long-standing uncertainty about whether lower-risk patients benefit from preventive statin treatment, suggesting that these drugs may have a broader protective effect than previously believed.
WHAT LOW CARDIOVASCULAR RISK INVOLVES
Researchers analyzed data from the UK IQVIA Medical Research Data (IMRD) database to evaluate the effectiveness and safety of initiating statin therapy for primary prevention in adults with type 2 diabetes, stratified by predicted 10-year risk of cardiovascular disease. The study population included people in the United Kingdom with type 2 diabetes aged 25 to 84 years, who were followed for up to 10 years.
None of these patients had serious heart or liver problems before the start of the study. The researchers compared people who started statin treatment with those who did not, at different levels of predicted risk of heart disease. The data showed that statins reduced the odds of dying from any cause and the risk of serious cardiac events in all patients, even those considered low risk.
The authors observed a very mild increase in myopathy in a risk group, but there was no additional risk of liver problems. According to the researchers, these data suggest that doctors should consider the benefits of statin use in all adults with type 2 diabetes, even when the predicted risk of short-term cardiovascular disease is low.