Drug 'Cuts Diabetics' Stroke Risk by Half'
 06 June, 2004

A cholesterol-lowering drug reduced the risk of stroke in diabetes patients by nearly a half, according to the results of a study published today.

And the drug, a statin, cut the danger of any cardiovascular event, such as a heart attack, by well over a third, the study found.

The trial was a collaboration between Diabetes UK, the Department of Health and Pfizer UK and co-ordinated by University College London.

It showed that 10mg a day of atorvastatin (Lipitor) reduced cardiovascular events in patients with diabetes without existing cardiovascular disease by 37%.

Stroke, the third most common cause of death in the UK and the single biggest cause of disability among adults, was reduced by 48%.

The benefits were observed among a total of 2,838 patients whose cholesterol levels were already quite low before treatment.

Diabetes patients are at greatly increased risk of suffering CVD.

Professor John Betteridge of University College London . said: “In this study, patients on atorvastatin experienced major CVD benefits – so much so that the trial was stopped early because it would be unfair to those receiving placebo to continue.

“Currently, only patients with diabetes with elevated cholesterol or established heart disease routinely receive statins – but this study shows that even those without CVD or high cholesterol could benefit from cholesterol-lowering.”

Simon O’Neill, head of information and education at Diabetes UK, said: “People with diabetes spend 1.1 million days in hospital in the UK every year. Two thirds of this time is as a result of cardiovascular disease, much of which could be prevented. Doctors should now consider all of their patients with diabetes for statin therapy.”

A spokesman for Diabetes UK said current UK National Institute for Clinical Excellence (NICE) guidelines for managing diabetes were “woefully inadequate”.

He said these restricted statins to people who had already had a heart attack or similar, or those with high cholesterol.

Thousands of lives could be saved if doctors provided statin treatment to everyone with Type 2 diabetes, he added.

A spokeswoman for NICE said: “The Department for Health asked NICE in April this year to develop guidance on the use of statins for the prevention of coronary events, and to advise on any patient groups for whom statins might be particularly appropriate including people with diabetes.

“We will take into account all new evidence when developing this guidance, which we expect to issue in September 2005.”

The study was conducted in 132 centres across the UK and Ireland and the results presented today to the American Diabetes Association congress in Orlando