Take statins, almost all diabetics are urged

From the Montreal Gazette:
Almost all of the more than 2 million Canadians with diabetes should be taking cholesterol-lowering drugs, according to a major new study.

Researchers who pooled data from 14 studies involving more than 90,000 people say cholesterol reducers known as statins lower the risk of heart attack and stroke in people with diabetes by about one-third - even in those whose risk of a major "vascular event" is as low as one per cent per year.

Reporting today in the journal The Lancet, researchers say their study shows "convincingly" most people with diabetes should consider taking statins.

"I know it sounds drastic but this is a group of people we can't be complacent about," says Colin Baigent, a professor of epidemiology at the University of Oxford and a member of the Cholesterol Treatment Trialists' Collaborators. ...more