Drug Reduces Risk of Diabetes

A new study shows that the cholesterol-lowering drug pravastatin may reduce

the risk of developing type 2 diabetes. The study, published in the most recent Circulation: Journal of the American Heart Association, was designed to determine pravastatin s effectiveness on preventing a first heart attack in people with high cholesterol, but it also found that pravastatin reduced the risk of type 2 diabetes by 30 percent.
Researchers in Scotland studied almost 6,000 men ages 45 to 64 and found that less than three percent developed diabetes. Although researchers say the results are striking, more evaluation is needed to determine if there is some unique property of pravastatin that has this effect, or if it applies to all drugs in the statin family.
Further studies of the drug have shown it also reduced the risk of stroke by 22 percent in people who already suffered a heart attack. Even people who were on blood pressure lowering drugs or aspirin to prevent a stroke benefited from pravastatin, researchers say.