Ta-Liang Chen,1,2,* Chao-Shun Lin,2–4 Jui-An Lin,1,2 Chun-Chieh Yeh,5,6 Li-Chin Sung,7 Yi-Cheng Chang,8 Chun-Chuan Shih,9,10,* Chien-Chang Liao2–4,11,12
1Department of Anesthesiology, Wan Fang Hospital, Taipei Medical University, Taipei, Taiwan; 2Department of Anesthesiology, School of Medicine, College of Medicine, Taipei Medical University, Taipei, Taiwan; 3Department of Anesthesiology, Taipei Medical University Hospital, Taipei, Taiwan; 4Anesthesiology and Health Policy Research Center, Taipei Medical University Hospital, Taipei, Taiwan; 5Department of Surgery, China Medical University Hospital, Taichung, Taiwan; 6Department of Surgery, University of Illinois, Chicago, IL, USA; 7Division of Cardiology, Department of Internal Medicine, Shuang Ho Hospital, Taipei Medical University, New Taipei City, Taiwan; 8Division of Endocrinology, Department of Internal Medicine, National Taiwan University Hospital, Taipei, Taiwan; 9School of Chinese Medicine for Post-Baccalaureate, College of Medicine, I-Shou University, Kaohsiung, Taiwan; 10Ph.D. Program in Clinical Drug Development of Herbal Medicine, College of Pharmacy, Taipei Medical University, Taipei, Taiwan; 11Research Center of Big Data and Meta-Analysis, Wan Fang Hospital, Taipei Medical University, Taipei, Taiwan; 12School of Chinese Medicine, College of Chinese Medicine, China Medical University, Taichung, Taiwan
*These authors contributed equally to this work
Correspondence: Chien-Chang Liao
Department of Anesthesiology, Taipei Medical University Hospital, 252 Wuxing St., Taipei 11031, Taiwan
Tel +886-2-2737-2181, ext. 8310
Fax +886-2-2736-7344
Email jacky48863027@yahoo.com.tw
Objective: This study aimed to evaluate the risk of incident diabetes between people who used lovastatin and red yeast rice (RYR) prescriptions.
Methods: A retrospective cohort study was performed to analyze the real-world database of Taiwan’s National Health Insurance. We identified the RYR cohort, which included 34,504 persons age 20 years or older who began their use of a RYR prescription in 2010–2014. A comparison cohort of 34,504 adults beginning the use of lovastatin was selected from the same dataset, which was matched by age and sex. Both cohorts had no diabetes before the use of the medications. Events of incident diabetes in 2000–2015 were ascertained from medical claims. Adjusted hazard ratios (HRs) and 95% confidence intervals (CIs) of incident diabetes associated with the use of RYR prescriptions were calculated.
Results: The incidences of diabetes for the RYR cohort and the lovastatin cohort were 1.01 and 2.59 per 100 person-years, respectively (P < 0.0001). Compared with the lovastatin cohort, the adjusted HR of incident diabetes was 0.46 (95% CI 0.43–0.50) for people who used RYR prescriptions. The association between reduced incident diabetes and use of RYR prescriptions was significant in various subgroups. There was a dose-response relationship between RYR prescriptions and the reduced risk of incident diabetes.
Conclusion: We raised the possibility that people who used RYR prescriptions may have a lower risk of incident diabetes compared with the lovastatin cohort.
Source: Dove Press
