A target trial emulation study analysed 10-year outcomes for statin initiation among type 2 diabetes patients stratified by cardiovascular risk using UK primary care data. For low-risk individuals, statins reduced all-cause mortality by 0.53% and major cardiovascular disease events by 0.83% over 10 years. Among moderate-risk and high-risk groups, absolute risk reductions were substantially larger, with relative risk ratios of 0.78-0.85 across risk strata. Notably, myopathy risk increased minimally only in the moderate-risk stratum, while liver dysfunction showed no significant elevation across any risk category. These findings support statin use for primary cardiovascular prevention across the entire spectrum of type 2 diabetes patients, including those with predicted low 10-year cardiovascular risk, challenging existing guidelines that restrict statins to higher-risk individuals.⁶

^Reference: 

Yan VKC, Blais JE, Gamble JM, et al. Effectiveness and Safety of Statins in Type 2 Diabetes According to Baseline Cardiovascular Risk : A Target Trial Emulation Study. Ann Intern Med. 2025. doi: 10.7326/ANNALS-25-00662.