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August 21, 2000

Complications, Other Medications

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Question from the UK:

Can you tell me whether it is safe for a person with diabetes to take [a brand of a prescription medication] to reduce cholesterol?

Answer:

From: DTeam Staff

The brief answer is yes.

The risk of people with diabetes of having cardiac and vascular complications from atherosclerosis, a process that is aggravated by high cholesterol levels (treated by various prescription medications) is much higher than for most non-diabetic folks, and it’s considered more important to force the cholesterol levels down (see lipidhealth for more information). Hence my conclusion: If your physician feels comfortable writing a prescription for you to take a lipid-lowering medication, and you have both diabetes and high cholesterol, it’s probably much safer to take it, than not take it!

WWQ