Do You Have Type 2 Diabetes and Also Take Statins?

Maybe you'll start noticing a phrase that gets used in a ridiculous way...

“The benefits outweigh the risks.”

Has your doctor ever told you that?

There are many risks, and all of them are serious health problems. In fact, the risks far outweigh the benefits. Especially if you already have type 2 diabetes.

Statins are the main drugs doctors prescribe to lower cholesterol. These pharmaceutical products work by blocking an enzyme in the liver responsible for producing cholesterol.

Statins became some of the most widely prescribed drugs when the threshold for high total cholesterol was lowered to 200 a few years ago.

Today, tens of millions of people take cholesterol-lowering drugs, believing this is the best way to prevent heart disease. In fact, about 30 percent of men and women in the West over the age of 40 take a statin.

The problem is that statins come with a host of side effects that can be quite significant. One of the more serious side effects of statins is the significant increase in the risk of type 2 diabetes. Research on this link shows that the connection may be even stronger than previously reported.

The researchers prospectively studied 8,567 men and women with an average age of 64. All of them were free of diabetes and were not taking statins when the study began. In a follow-up 15 years later, about 12% of the group had started taking statins, most of them Zocor or Lipitor (simvastatin or atorvastatin) and the rest Pravachol or Lescol (pravastatin or fluvastatin). Most had taken the statins for more than a year, and 716 new cases of diabetes occurred in the group.

After controlling for age, sex, smoking, family history of diabetes and other factors, the researchers found that statin use was associated with a higher risk of insulin resistance and high blood sugar, and with a 38 percent increased risk of developing type 2 diabetes.

The statin brand and dosage made no difference, but the risk was especially high for statin users who were overweight or obese, conditions that of course also increase the risk of type 2 diabetes. The study appeared in the British Journal of Clinical Pharmacology. Another study also shows a similar causal link between rising blood glucose, type 2 diabetes and statins.

Here is the key fact to pay close attention to: the number one risk factor for developing type 2 diabetes is heart disease. Adults with type 2 diabetes are two to four times more likely to die of heart disease than adults without diabetes.

So the question is: if you were told to take statins to lower your cholesterol and your chances of heart disease, but they actually increase your chance of developing type 2 diabetes, should you take statins?

How do statins raise the risk of diabetes?

Statins have been shown to increase the risk of diabetes through several different mechanisms. The most important is that they increase insulin resistance, which can be very damaging to your health. Increased insulin resistance contributes to chronic inflammation in your body, and inflammation is the hallmark of most diseases.

In fact, increased insulin resistance can lead to heart disease, which, ironically, is the main reason for taking a cholesterol-lowering drug in the first place! It can also promote weight gain, high blood pressure, heart attacks, chronic fatigue, thyroid disorders and diseases such as Parkinson's, Alzheimer's and cancer.

Second, statins increase the risk of diabetes by actually raising blood sugar. When you eat a meal containing starches and sugar, some of the excess sugar goes to your liver, which then stores it as fat. Statins work by preventing your liver from doing this. As a result, your liver sends the sugar back into your bloodstream and your blood sugar levels rise.

If you are taking a statin drug and find that your blood glucose is elevated, you may simply have hyperglycemia, a side effect or result of your statins. Unfortunately, many doctors will mistakenly diagnose you with type 2 diabetes, and may even prescribe a diabetes drug such as metformin, or even insulin injections.

Stopping the statin will help determine whether it is responsible for your blood glucose levels. Be sure to consult your doctor before stopping any medication they have prescribed.

Statins are known for the muscle weakness and pain they can cause, but statins can affect much more than just your muscles and blood sugar. The brain relies on plenty of available cholesterol for thinking and concentration, and many people have reported cognitive problems and memory loss as a result of statin drugs.

Other possible side effects of statins include: kidney problems, anemia, sexual dysfunction, immune suppression, cataracts, increased cancer risk, abnormal liver enzymes and depression.

The other ironic and contradictory fact about statins and heart health is that statins deplete your body of CoQ10, an essential cofactor in the body that is vital for producing ATP, which every cell in the body uses to make energy.

This is especially important for muscles, particularly the heart muscle. CoQ10 is produced mainly in the liver and also plays a role in maintaining blood glucose. Increasing depletion of CoQ10 causes extreme fatigue, muscle weakness and pain, and can even lead to heart failure.

Doctors seem to be unaware of this risk and don't usually discuss with patients the importance of supplementing with extra CoQ10. CoQ10 is also needed to neutralize free radicals in the body, which damage the cell's DNA and its replication. It's a vicious cycle of low CoQ10, no cellular energy (which translates into no energy at all!) and damaged DNA.

In addition, the muscle fatigue and pain make it hard to find the motivation for any amount of physical activity, which further weakens the cardiovascular system and the muscles.

Statin drugs also interfere with necessary and vital biological functions, including hormone pathways. Statins affect the sex hormones, cortisone and vitamin D. Statins actually interfere with your body's natural ability to make vitamin D, which is linked to cholesterol. The fact is that vitamin D actually helps improve insulin resistance, so a drop in vitamin D also removes this protective factor and opens the door a little wider to type 2 diabetes.

Do I really need to lower my cholesterol?

Total cholesterol levels are only a small part of your overall risk of heart disease. Unfortunately, conventional doctors base their decision to recommend statins on those levels.

For example, no one at the clinic will measure your HRV, which is a far more reliable indicator of heart health. Why? Because there is still no profitable business model behind it built on continual medication use.

It is known that cholesterol is not the main cause of heart disease. In fact, three major reviews show the errors in the accepted theory that cholesterol causes heart disease. And this study also shows no real link between cholesterol and heart disease. In fact, it has been shown that it is actually low cholesterol, not high cholesterol, that contributes more to all-cause mortality among older adults.

If you have a lipid panel showing that your total cholesterol is higher than normal, it still does not predict any kind of heart disease risk unless it is above 350.

Your high-density lipoprotein, or HDL, level is a much more reliable indicator of heart disease risk. Here are the two ratios to check on your lipid panel:

HDL/total cholesterol ratio: ideally it should be above 24 percent. If it is below 10 percent, you have a significantly increased risk of heart disease. Triglyceride/HDL ratio: it should be below 2.

Many people with total cholesterol levels above 250 are actually at low risk of heart disease because of their high levels of protective HDL, and many people with low cholesterol, under 200, can be at high risk of heart disease because of their high LDL and triglycerides.

In fact, the conventional LDL/cholesterol hypothesis is not entirely accurate, because damage to the inner layers of your arteries always comes before heart disease. This damage can be caused by factors such as smoking, high blood pressure, elevated blood sugar and chronic inflammation.

Once an artery is damaged, cholesterol-rich plaque begins to build up as a protective mechanism. Problems arise when the rate of blood vessel damage and blood clot formation exceeds the body's ability to repair the blood vessels.

Your body actually needs a good amount of cholesterol. It is important for making cell membranes, all your hormones (especially the sex hormones), vitamin D and the bile acids that help you digest fat.

Cholesterol also helps your brain work properly and is essential for healthy nerve function. There is also plenty of evidence that low cholesterol levels increase the risk of cancer, memory loss, Parkinson's disease, hormonal imbalance, stroke, depression, suicide and violent behavior.

So if your doctor recommends that you take statins to lower your cholesterol, think twice about it and go do your own research first.