Cholesterol Drugs May Prevent Dementia

BACK

By Merritt McKinney

NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - Cholesterol-lowering drugs called statins may reduce the risk of dementia in older people, preliminary research suggests.

The risk of dementia was more than two-thirds lower in people taking statins than in those not on the medications, according to a report in the November 11th issue of the medical journal The Lancet. ``If substantiated, the implications of this observational study are considerable,'' writes a team of researchers led by Dr. Hershel Jick, of the Boston University School of Medicine in Massachusetts.

``These findings suggest that the use of statins could substantially reduce the risk of dementia in the elderly, either by delaying its onset, or by opposing specific or general age-related changes that result in cognitive impairment,'' the authors state.

But one of the study's authors told Reuters Health that more research is needed to confirm the findings. ``The apparent effect of statins on the reduction of risk for dementia is an intriguing, but not definitive, finding,'' said Dr. David A. Drachman, of the University of Massachusetts Medical School in Worcester. The current study looked at people in the population that had taken the drugs in the past, a study design that cannot answer the question conclusively. For example, wealthier, more educated people who tend to be at lower risk of dementia anyway may be more likely to take cholesterol-lowering drugs.

The only way to conclusively determine the link would be to randomly assign people to take cholesterol-lowering drugs or a placebo (an inactive pill), and follow them over time to see who develops dementia. Studies to determine how statins might reduce the risk of dementia will also are important, Drachman noted.

Dementia affects about 10% of people age 65 and older. While the causes of gradual decline in mental function vary, blood-vessel function is thought to have an effect on the development of some cases of dementia.

To see whether statins affect the risk of dementia, the researchers compared 284 people aged 50 and older who had dementia with 1,080 similarly aged people without dementia. When the researchers took into account factors that might have affected the risk of dementia, including smoking, age and sex, they found that people with high cholesterol who took statins were up to 70% less likely to have dementia than people who did not have high cholesterol or who were not taking cholesterol-lowering drugs. Statins can reduce the risk of heart attack by lowering levels of harmful LDL cholesterol and boosting levels of helpful HDL cholesterol.

In addition, people taking statins were less likely to develop dementia than people with high cholesterol who were taking non-statin cholesterol-lowering drugs, according to the report.

Although the study itself did not receive outside funding, the Boston Collaborative Drug Surveillance Program, where several of the researchers work, is funded in part by several drug companies.

SOURCE: The Lancet 2000;356:1627-1631.