Cholesterol Medication and side effects

jaffacake2019

One of the side effects of taking cholesterol medication is that you can develop diabetes.
I have been prescribed Atorvastatin 20mg but i have stopped taking it after a few weeks because i dont want to develop side-effects.

Has anyone else developed diabetes as a side-effect ?

elsien

What is your diet like? Addressing that and ensuring enough exercise would be beneficial if diabetes is a real concern.
It's far too simplistic for someone to say statins caused their diabetes without taking all the other relevant factors into account.

https://www.nhs.uk/news/medication/benefits-of-statins-outweigh-diabetes-risk/

unforeseen

jaffacake2019 wrote: »

One of the side effects of taking cholesterol medication is that you can develop diabetes.
I have been prescribed Atorvastatin 20mg but i have stopped taking it after a few weeks because i dont want to develop side-effects.

Has anyone else developed diabetes as a side-effect ?

Have you read the PIL? Risk of diabetes doesn't even manage to crawl in as a rare side effect only that it is a possibility.


Having been on statins for 15 years and being obese and a target for diabetes, all my blood tests have come back normal. I am more worried about the sides effects of my Methotrexate as there is a proven link to liver damage from that.

pmduk

jaffacake2019 wrote: »

One of the side effects of taking cholesterol medication is that you can develop diabetes.

With all due respect I think that statement is balderdash.(I'm tempted to use a stroger description. I'm unable to see how any statin can affect the body's ability to deal with insulin, which is the major cause of diabetes - though I'm not a clinician..

One thing not taken into account by the report Elsien refers to is the probability that statins are being referred to people already at risk of diabetes. As the study didn't include a blind study it is dangerous to infer any such correlation.

keithdc

pmduk wrote: »

With all due respect I think that statement is balderdash.(I'm tempted to use a stroger description. I'm unable to see how any statin can affect the body's ability to deal with insulin, which is the major cause of diabetes - though I'm not a clinician..

One thing not taken into account by the report Elsien refers to is the probability that statins are being referred to people already at risk of diabetes. As the study didn't include a blind study it is dangerous to infer any such correlation.

There are systematic reviews of randomised trials that show statins increase the risk of diabetes. The mechanism by which statins reduce cholesterol has a number of other affects within the body (e.g. they also affect how people respond to infection)- some of these pathways are not well understood.

This is not to say that the development of diabetes at an individual level can be reliably attributed to a statin, rather than lifestyle factors.

Back to the OP's query....you were prescribed a statin for a reason. The clinician prescribing the statin will have considered the risks and benefits of a statin. If your attitude to risk has changed, you should discuss this with your GP. Basing a decision to stop taking a prescribed medication based on stuff you have read on the internet and what your mate at the pub told you seems rather foolhardy.

Fire_Fox

The best person to discuss the frequency of a given side effect with is your community pharmacist. The best person to discuss alternatives to prescribed medication with is your family doctor.

If you are willing to commit to overhauling your diet and lifestyle, tell your doctor. The majority of patients are not.