Crestor Warning: High Dosage Increases Diabetes Risk [Study]

Crestor, the drug that helps users lower their cholesterol could also help those same users increase their risk of diabetes. A recent study reported by Bloomberg News has found that high dosages of Crestor, Zocor and other cholesterol lowering drugs can actually increase diabetes in users compared to low dosage users  and non-users of statin drugs.

The new report is based off the same type of research conducted in 2010 which found that statins (such as Crestor) in high dosages when compared to a placebo group caused diabetes in more patients, while the more statin taken the higher the risk of diabetes became.

The findings come from 33,000 patients who were given varying dosages of the drugs, while the Journal of the American Medical Association notes that high dosage users had a 12% higher chance of developing diabetes than non-users.

It’s still unclear if statins also increase the chances of type 2 diabetes and researchers say that animals that used the statins had an increased resistance to insulting which signals high level of blood sugar.

According to DrugAlert:

Crestor is a statin drug which aims to reduce the amount of cholesterol and other fatty substances in the blood. These inhibitors work by slowing down the overall production of cholesterol in the body. Crestor is usually taken to help decrease the possibility of getting heart disease, chest pain, stroke, and heart attacks. These statins are among the highest selling drugs within the US, totaling near $15 billion for the year 2008.

Crestor has come under fire in the past for tissue damage in muscles and kidney failure, both of which were updated during a 2005 FDA warning.