• Alaa J Rahal, Ahmed I ElMallah, Rita J Poushuju, and Rana Itani.
• Department of Pharmacology and Therapeutics, Faculty of Pharmacy, Beirut Arab University, Beirut, Lebanon. E-mail. alolita_rahal_470@hotmail.com.
• Saudi Med J. 2016 Oct 1; 37 (10): 1051-60.

ObjectivesTo investigate and establish the relationship between the use of statin therapy and the risk of development of diabetes. MethodsPubMed and the Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Trials was searched for randomized controlled end-point trials of statins, with more than 1000 subjects and a minimum of one-year follow-up period, published until August 2015. The odds ratio (OR) of diabetes incidence with overall statin therapy as well as with different statins in question was calculated through random effect meta-analysis model. ResultsFourteen studies were included in the analysis with a total of 94,943 participants. Of these, 2392 subjects developed incident diabetes in the statin and 2167 in the placebo groups during a 4-year follow-up. The OR of diabetes incidence with statin therapy was significantly higher as compared with the placebo group (OR=1.11; 95% confidence interval = 1.0 to 1.2; p=0.007). There was an insignificant level of heterogeneity between the included trials (Cochran Q= 19.463, p=0.109, I2=33.20). Subgroup analysis showed that only 2 statins namely, atorvastatin (OR= 1.29; p=0.042) and rosuvastatin (OR = 1.17; p=0.01) were significantly associated.  ConclusionStatin therapy can slightly increase risk of incident diabetes in subjects with hypercholesterolemia.

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