Cardiovascular disease is the leading causes of death worldwide and high cholesterol plays a major role in accelerating its progression. Medical practitioners have turned to statins as a treatment to decrease cholesterol-carrying lipoproteins such as small dense lipoproteins (sdLDL), considered to be especially harmful. A new study in the Journal of Cardiovascular Pharmacology and Therapeutics finds that rosuvastatin may be more effective among prediabetic patients than patients with normal glucose levels.
Study author Dr. Moses Elisaf studied two groups of dyslipidemic patients - 49 prediabetic (IFG) patients and 64 patients with normal glucose levels. Both groups were prescribed 10 or 20mg of rosuvastatin and evaluated after 24 weeks. IFG patients experienced a greater decrease in the cholesterol concentration of sdLDLs (-65.7%) compared to their normoglycemic counterparts (-38.5%).
Dr. Elisaf commented, "The results of the study indicate that treatment with rosuvastatin, the most potent statin in reducing low-density cholesterol levels, led to a greater decrease of the atherogenic sdLDL cholesterol in the prediabetic group compared with the normoglycemic group, even after adjusting for baseline values."
The study aslo demonstrated a favorable redistribution of low-density cholesterol levels from the more atherogenic sdLDL to the large bouyand LDLs (lbLDL) after rosuvastatin treatment for patients with prediabetes.