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Chronic statin use increases risk for developing type 2 diabetes mellitus by about 9%. A Dutch team wondered why and reasoned that the answer might involve differential production of the LDL cholesterol receptor:
Statins therapy results in increased production of the LDL cholesterol receptor.
Patients with familial hypercholesterolemia have low incidence of type 2 diabetes mellitus.
The central lesion in familial hypercholesterolemia is genetically determined low production of the LDL cholesterol receptor.
The investigators reasoned that if low production of the LDL cholesterol receptor in familial hypercholesterolemia is what confers low risk for diabetes, and statins increase production of the LDL cholesterol receptor, then perhaps this incre…