SUCRA would take a value of 1 when the treatment is certain to be the best and of 0
when the treatment is certain to be the worst. A Bayesian random-effects meta-regression was performed to formally explore whether the effect on DM is related to the power of statins to reduce cholesterol or rather to a molecule-dependent mechanism.
Additionally, the potential effect on the results of different body mass indexes (BMIs) across the studies as a proxy for different cardiovascular risk profiles was investigated; specifically, in the meta-regression analysis, the Bayesian OR for DM of each
statin versus placebo was regressed against the percentage of low-density lipoprotein (LDL) cholesterol reduction using
BMI as a covariate. The goodness of fit of the model to the data was assessed using the residual deviance.