According to this research which has been presented at the Society of Nuclear Medicine and Molecular Imaging 2021’s Annual Meeting, PET scans of lipophilic statin users discovered a major decline in the metabolism in the brain part that is first affected by Alzheimer’s.
In fact, in people with a mild cognitive impairment, the lipophilic statins doubled their risk of dementia which didn’t happen in those who didn’t take this therapy.
What Are Statins?
Statins are meds used for cholesterol reduction and a lower risk of strokes and heart attacks. A commonly used drug in the developed world, around 50 percent of Americans over the age of 75 take it.
Various types of statins can be found today, depending on the health needs of the patient, including the hydrophilic ones that are focused on the liver and the lipophilic statins which go into the tissues in various parts of the bodies.
According to project head Prasanna Padmanabham, there have been a lot of conflicting studies on the impact of statins on cognition.
She adds that although some claims put statins as protective against dementia, others claim that they actually contribute to its faster development. Their study therefore focused on clarifying the relation between statin use and the user’s cognition.
What Did the Researchers Do?
The research team divided the participants into three groups according to three parameters, i.e. baseline cognitive status, baseline cholesterol levels, and type of statin consumed.
The participants underwent PET scans to find areas of declining metabolism in each of the groups.
The team analyzed clinical data collected from eight years.
They concluded that the people with a mild cognitive impairment or a normal cognition who took lipophilic statins had double risk of dementia compared to those who didn’t take these meds.
What’s more, the PET scans revealed that over a certain period of time, these users had a major decline in the metabolic processes in the part of the brain that declines the most in Alzheimer’s early stages.
On the other hand, there was no clinical or metabolic drop in users who took other statins or for the users of statins with a higher baseline serum cholesterol level.
The researchers believe that their findings may be used to inform patients better during the decision-making process about which statin is the best for them in order to optimize their cognition and capacity for independent daily functioning.
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