Risk of coronary events in Japanese patients with both hypercholesterolemia and type 2 diabetes mellitus on low-dose simvastatin therapy: Implication from Japan Lipid Intervention Trial (J-LIT)

Hypercholesterolemic patients with type 2 diabetes mellitus are at increased risk of coronary heart disease (CHD); however, direct evidence is very limited in Japanese patients. The J-LIT is the first nationwide study conducted to assess the relationship between serum lipid levels and development of coronary events in Japanese hypercholesterolemic patients. We analyzed the coronary events in the J-LIT study subjects by having type 2 diabetes or not. Of the total 41,801 subjects without prior CHD who received open-label simvastatin, 5 mg/day, 6554 (male 40.2%, age 57.8 ± 7.8) subjects had type 2 diabetes, while 35,247 (male 30.0%, age 57.8 ± 7.9) did not. In this analysis, relative coronary event risks based on a 0.26 mmol/l (10 mg/dl) increase in low density lipoprotein-cholesterol (LDL-C), were similar between hypercholesterolemic subjects with and without type 2 diabetes (17.3% versus 19.4%). Although all subjects were treated with simvastatin, the subjects with type 2 diabetes have significantly more coronary events compared to the subjects without type 2 diabetes (1.80/1000 and 0.76/1000 patient-years, respectively). Given the results above, to reduce the risk of coronary events in Japanese patients with both hypercholesterolemia and type 2 diabetes, careful and strict cholesterol management is needed in addition to the control of blood glucose.