Key takeaways:

• Approximately one-third of patients with new-onset diabetes aged 40 to 75 years do not receive a statin prescription within 1 year of diagnosis.
• Initiation took months for many of those eligible.

SCOTTSDALE, Ariz. — Contrary to guidelines, one in three eligible patients with new-onset diabetes do not receive a prescription for statin therapy within 1 year of diagnosis, a speaker reported.

Many patients with new-onset diabetes aged 40 to 75 years who may benefit from statin therapy do not receive it within 1 year, and among those who do, prescription may take months after initial diagnosis, according to study findings presented at the American Society for Preventive Cardiology Congress on CVD Prevention.

Approximately one-third of patients with new-onset diabetes aged 40 to 75 years do not receive a statin prescription within 1 year of diagnosis. Image: Adobe Stock

“Diabetes increases [atherosclerotic] CVD risk by fourfold, and statins are known to significantly reduce these cardiovascular events. Looking at the 2018 multisociety guidelines, they give class I recommendations to patients aged 40 to 75 with diabetes that they should be receiving statins right away,” Muhammad Maaz Bin Rehan, MD, resident physician in internal medicine at AdventHealth Sebring in Florida, said during a presentation. “Although the recent guidelines in 2026 have replaced these older guidelines, they still recommend statins to reduce cardiovascular events for the long term. But we don’t know what exactly is going on in the real world. How many patients are receiving these statins? How often and what are the timings of initiation of these statins?” Rehan took third place in the Best Early Career Abstract award contest at the meeting.

To better understand trends is statin use among patients with newly diagnosed diabetes, Rehan and colleagues conducted a retrospective analysis of a large, real-word dataset (Epic Cosmos). The analysis included 675,951 statin-naive patients with newly diagnosed diabetes and confirmed outpatient follow-up.

The primary outcome was statin prescription with 12 months of diabetes diagnosis.

Rehan reported that 62.9% of participants were prescribed a statin within 12 months of diabetes diagnosis, meaning one in three eligible patients were untreated.

“There is this huge treatment gap,” Rehan said during the presentation. “Although we have class I recommendation to start these patients on statins right away, we don’t know what exactly is going on here, whether there is clinical inertia, whether there is hesitancy regarding the adverse effects. But we know for sure that nearly one in three eligible patients who should be receiving statins right away remain untreated.”

After initial diagnosis of diabetes, 11.7% of patients were prescribed a statin by 1 month, followed by 26.8% at 3 months, 44.2% at 6 months, 62.9% at 12 months and 67.7% at 15 months, according to the presentation.

“We see not only that the patients are not receiving statins, but there is also a delayed initiation of these statins as well,” Rehan said during the presentation.

Asian patients had the highest rates of statin prescriptions within 12 months of diabetes diagnosis at 69%, followed by Black patients at 63%, white patients at 62.9% and patients of other race at 61.4%, according to the presentation.

Rehan also reported statins were prescribed at a rate of 64.5% among men and 61.1% among women.

“We are missing out on a significant [opportunity for] primary prevention of ASCVD. The possible reasons could be clinical inertia,” Rehan said during the presentation. “We know that there is a treatment gap, but then there is hesitancy. We are not taking any action regarding this. There are competing priorities, like if the patients are coming in as an outpatient with abdominal pain, we see that they are new-onset diabetics, but not on statins. We focus majorly on the initial complaint, but we overlook these other factors of their health.”