Putting something into balance should not mean something else becomes unbalanced. For anyone with high blood cholesterol and taking Repatha for it, however, that can be exactly what happens. HDL is the bad cholesterol and Repatha works to make sure much more of it is cleared out of the blood by the liver. The tradeoff is that it can raise your blood sugar levels, which creates a whole new problem if that happens to any great extent. So, the question then becomes how much does Repatha raise blood sugar? 

The first thing we can say in relation to this is that the risk of higher blood sugar applies more to people who are using Repatha for more off-label uses, and in this case those who are using it counter heart attack or stroke risk. So, if you are taking it for cholesterol you don’t need to be as concerned about the possibility of your medication contributing to prediabetes if you stay on it too long. If that is a known risk your doctor may prescribe a statin drug for you to be on at the same time, but this will depend on the individual.  

This is an important consideration connected to how much does Repatha raise blood sugar, but if you are still reading here, you are going to be looking for actual numbers and so that is where we will move to with the rest of this blog entry. This is a medication where if people are prescribed Repatha it will usually be in a situation where they have no choice but to take it. If you have had high blood sugar worries in the past this is the information you need.  

Not Much for Most  

Here are those numbers. Clinical trials with Repatha have shown that for some users an increase in blood sugar levels of  HbA 1c 5.7%–6.4% or fasting plasma glucose 100 to 125 mg/dL was seen and attributable to using the medication primarily for stroke and heart attack prevention. That is your basic guideline for how much does Repatha raise blood sugar, but it is also helpful if you know more about which trial participants experienced these increases more than others.  

They were females over 60 and had been on Repatha for less than one month, and a significant number were also taking Metformin, and had Hyperlipidemia. There was no mention if they were super freaky or card-carrying NRA members, but those sorts of details would have nothing to with how much does Repatha raise blood sugar levels anyway. But seeing Hyperlipidemia and Metformin use as common between them does suggest that people most at risk here are women who have high HDL cholesterol and already in treatment for Type 2 diabetes. Or prediabetic at the very least.  

The majority of the time if you are a candidate to start on this medication your doctor will be one step ahead of you in recognizing whether Repatha and blood sugar is a risk. If so, they will take that into full account before they write the prescription for you or discuss alternative heart attack or stroke prevention medications.