Diabetic dyslipidemia: a case for aggressive intervention in the absence of clinical trial and cost effectiveness data.

Patients with diabetes mellitus have a two- to fourfold increase in clinical manifestations of atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease (ASCVD). Traditional risk factors such as age, hypertension, left ventricular hypertrophy, hyperlipidemia and smoking are still operative in diabetes but do not account for the total increase in ASCVD risk associated with diabetes. The most common lipid abnormalities in noninsulin-dependent diabetes mellitus and poorly controlled insulin-dependent diabetes mellitus are hypertriglyceridemia and low high density lipoprotein cholesterol. Evidence is presented to support the hypothesis that these lipid abnormalities are atherogenic in diabetes. Treatment of diabetic dyslipidemia with conservative measures (diet, weight loss, aerobic exercise, improved glycemic control) and pharmacological management have been shown to be highly effective in normalizing the lipid abnormalities. However, few trials of lipid lowering therapy have included patients with known diabetes mellitus and, to date, there have been no well-controlled prospective trials of lipid lowering therapy in diabetes. There is therefore no definitive proof regarding the benefit of lipid lowering therapy in diabetes mellitus. There are also no data regarding the cost effectiveness of lipid lowering therapy in reducing ASCVD complications in diabetes. There are data, however, showing that complications of ASCVD in patients with diabetes account for a large percentage of total health care expenditures. The overwhelming evidence that patients with diabetes have a high rate of ASCVD, that traditional risk factors for ASCVD are operative in diabetes and that the dyslipidemia of diabetes is highly prevalent and proatherogenic, predicts that the treatment of ASVD risk factors, including dyslipidemia, will be associated with a substantial reduction in ASCVD complications.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)