2014.07.18 01:03
By M. ALEXANDER OTTO, Internal Medicine News Digital Network | JULY 10, 2014
Data source: Neuropsychometric testing in almost 700 patients aged 70-90 years. Disclosures: Australia’s National Health and Medical Research Council funded the work. The investigators have no disclosures. CHICAGO – More liberal lipid targets in elderly patients and lower statin doses might offset the risk of memory decline associated with statin use in these patients, Australian investigators suggested. Dr. Katherine Samaras and her associates did neuropsychometric testing on 377 subjects 70-90 years old who had been on statins for 2-22 years, and 301 controls who had not taken the drugs. The analysis controlled for age, sex, education, smoking, the presence of hypertension, diabetes, heart disease, stroke, obesity, and the presence of apolipoprotein E e4 genotype (APOEe4), which increases the risk for Alzheimer’s disease. The subjects were part of the Sydney Memory and Ageing Study, a longitudinal cohort of community-dwelling, well elderly from the affluent part of Sydney. The findings add weight to the Food and Drug Administration's warning about statin use and memory loss in 2012. |
2014.07.18 01:54
2014.07.18 05:25
This has been a well-known fact. Nothing new.
People used to say, "You get dumb when you take cholesterol drugs."
This has something to do with lipid depletion in the brain tissue,
secondary to forced cholesterol lowering and enhanced by low-fat diet.
I guess we need to eat bacons, eggs, and butter at least once in a while.
Although there have been anecdotal case reports of memory loss associated with statins,
this study is the first that I encountered was done in a systemic, scientific way.