Diabetes the Result of Simvastatin Therapy

My husband, a thin, non-hypertensive smoker was prescribed Simvastatin after suffering a non-ST elevation myocardial infarction. At the time of his hospitalization, all values on his BMP were normal except a borderline high LDL.

He quit smoking the day of his heart attack and has not smoked since. He has made major dietary and lifestyle modifications (exercising daily after completing cardiac rehab).

Not long after he was dismissed from the hospital, he developed frequent urination. He has to get up every two hours during the night to empty his bladder. He was examined by our family doctor who found nothing untoward.

He had his three month post MI bloodwork done a few weeks ago. His LDL had gone down, but his FBS and triglycerides had skyrocketed. Our family doctor said "probable diabetes". After reading the studies and research, I called his cardiologist and asked whether or not he could be taken off of Simvastatin. He never returned my call, so I simply took him off of it. The doctor, who had been on vacation, called me a week later and told me he completely disagreed with my actions and changed my husband to Lipitor. He also ordered a FBS and A1C. Those were drawn before going on the Lipitor and were completely normal. He has another followup FBS scheduled in two weeks and if that is elevated, we will have to revisit whether or not the risk outweighs the benefit of staying on a statin.

I can completely understand, in the case of greatly elevated LDLs compounded with other risk factors such as smoking, obesity, hypertension, etc., why prescribing a statin is best practice. I don't understand, however (and especially in light of recent evidence) why a non-obese, non-hypertensive patient with a borderline LDL who has made major dietary and lifestyle modifications isn't monitored first, rx'd second. Every patient is different, as are their responses to medications, and if cholesterol values stabilize, artificially inducing diabetes via pharmaceuticals negates that and actually increases the risk of another heart attack or stroke.