Statins Dramatically Reduce Death and Heart Attack in Patients with Type 2 Diabetes
The higher the bad cholesterol level the more likely you are to have artery problems that lead to heart attack, stroke, or other artery problems. For every 40 point reduction in the LDL or bad cholesterol in high risk patients there is a 9% reduction in all-cause death, a 14% reduction in cardiovascular death, and a 10% reduction in heart attack or stroke. So if the beginning bad cholesterol level is 190 and you lower it to 70, cardiovascular deaths would be reduced by 42% in high risk patients.
One of the most impressive cholesterol-lowering studies was done in patients who had diabetes and known cardiovascular disease. It compared patients with diabetes on 40 mg of simvastatin (statin) vs patients taking an inactive pill or placebo over a five year period.
You can easily see that simvastatin is very effective in these high-risk patients with diabetes. Within just five years, one fourth of the patients not on a statin were dead compared with only fifteen percent of patients on simvastatin. Patients not on a statin had three times as many definite heart attacks, twice as many strokes and twice as many vascular events. Today these patients would be on a high-intensity statin like atorvastatin or rosuvastatin. When atorvastatin is part of a protocol to treat high risk patients with type 2 diabetes there are one fourth as many heart attacks and one fifth as many strokes. The main goal of cholesterol treatment in patients at high risk of vascular disease is to get on some dose of a statin and 91% of patients can take one. Despite this compelling evidence, only 27% of patients with diabetes and vascular disease are on a high intensity statin. That is a huge gap between scientific evidence and practice.