Starting statin treatment soon after a type 2 diabetes diagnosis was associated with a reduced risk of developing dementia, according to research presented at ESC Congress 2026 and published in The Lancet Regional Health - Europe. As populations age, the number of people living with dementia is expected to increase substantially. Because there are currently no effective treatments capable of preventing or reversing most forms of dementia, researchers are increasingly focused on identifying factors that could reduce the likelihood of developing the condition.
According to the Lancet Commission, nearly half of dementia cases could theoretically be prevented by addressing 14 modifiable risk factors. One of those factors involves managing cholesterol beginning in midlife. "Detecting and treating high levels of low-density lipoprotein cholesterol (LDL-C) from midlife is one such highlighted risk factor," explained presenter, Doctor Tummas Ternhamar from Copenhagen University Hospital, Denmark.
This issue may be especially relevant for people with type 2 diabetes. High LDL-C is common among these patients, while diabetes itself is recognized as a risk factor for cognitive decline and dementia. "We hypothesized that early initiation of LDL-C-lowering statins following type 2 diabetes diagnosis could be associated with a lower risk of dementia," said Doctor Ternhamar.
"And we tested this in a large nationwide study using analysis methods to emulate a randomized trial and reduce some of the bias associated with observational studies," he noted. Using Danish national registers, researchers identified 132,585 people who had not previously taken statins and who developed type 2 diabetes between 2006 and 2019. Participants were followed through the end of 2021, and medical records were examined for diagnoses of all-cause dementia.
The researchers used a clone-censor-weight design to compare dementia rates according to when statin therapy began. One group did not start statins within five years of receiving a diabetes diagnosis. A second group began statins early, within one year of diagnosis, while a third began treatment later, between one and five years after diagnosis.
During a median follow-up period of 7.1 years, 2.7% of participants developed dementia. Compared with people who did not begin statin therapy, those who started statins within the first year after being diagnosed with type 2 diabetes had a 15% lower relative risk of dementia over 10 years. Starting treatment later was also associated with a benefit, although the association was smaller.
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