Published in the May 2013 edition of Diabetes Care, an article by G Danaei et al. titled “Statins and risk of diabetes: an analysis of electronic medical records to evaluate possible bias due to differential survival.” aimed to determine if there was a bias in studies linking diabetes and statin drug use. Statins are drugs that work to lower cholesterol including Lipitor, Crestor, Zocor, and others.
The team writes “We used electronic medical records from 500 general practices in the U.K. and included data from 285,864 men and women aged 50-84 years from January 2000 to December 2010. We emulated the design and analysis of a hypothetical randomized trial of statins, estimated the observational analog of the intention-to-treat effect, and adjusted for differential survival bias using inverse-probability weighting.”
Results showed that “During 1.2 million person-years of follow-up, there were 13,455 cases of type 2 diabetes and 8,932 deaths. Statin initiation was associated with increased risk of type 2 diabetes. The hazard ratio (95% CI) of diabetes was 1.45 (1.39-1.50) before adjusting for potential confounders and 1.14 (1.10-1.19) after adjustment. Adjusting for differential survival did not change the estimates. Initiating atorvastatin and simvastatin was associated with increased risk of type 2 diabetes.”
This means that the risk for diabetes was raised by between 14 and 45%. For clarity, “atorvastatin” is the chemical name for Lipitor, a drug found linked to an increased risk for diabetes. After statistical analyses, the team concluded that “In this sample of the general population, statin therapy was associated with 14% increased risk of type 2 diabetes. Differential survival did not explain this increased risk”, meaning that a bias was not found and that statin drugs do, in fact, raise the risk for diabetes.
Due to the fact that many people have used Lipitor and other statins unaware of the risk for diabetes, a number of Lipitor diabetes lawsuits have been filed. If your or a loved one used Lipitor and suffered diabetes, you too may be entitled to significant financial compensation from the manufacturer. For a free, no-obligation case consultation, contact our team of Lipitor lawyers at the information provided below. We have the experience, resources, and skills required to win the justice you deserve.
(855) 452 – 5529
Our Lipitor Lawsuit Information page is a great place to start if you have any questions about Lipitor.