Simvastatin -- For hearts and minds?

An international team led by Benjamin Wolozin, MD, at Boston University School of Medicine used data from the US Veterans Affairs Database, which contains diagnostic, medication and demographic information on 4.5 million subjects. The researchers used statistical models to compare different statins, looking at data on over 700,000 simvastatin users and more than 50,000 atorvastatin users. The team targeted those aged 65 or over with no prior diagnosis of Alzheimer’s disease, who had been taking statins for at least seven months.

The researchers found that for subjects aged 65 and over, simvastatin was linked with a significantly reduced number of cases of dementia and Parkinson's disease". The researchers also made the surprising finding that not all statins are equal when it comes to dementia or Parkinson’s disease. A small reduction in dementia cases was seen among those who regularly take atorvastatin, which did not reach a level of statistical significance. Lovastatin was not found to have any significant effect on dementia, and neither atorvastatin nor lovastatin were associated with a reduction in the number of cases of Parkinson’s disease.

“The strength of reduction of incidence of dementia observed with simvastatin is striking,” the authors write. Further studies should confirm that it is simvastatin’s biological mode of action rather than a statistical bias at work. Previous research has studied whether statin treatment is beneficial for dementia sufferers or those at risk of dementia, but such research has lead to some conflicting results. The current study gives more reliable results as it has considerable statistical power and incorporates existing data to investigate dementia and Parkinson’s disease comprehensively.

Article:
Simvastatin is associated with a reduced incidence of dementia
Benjamin Wolozin, Stanley W Wang, Nien-Chen Li, Austin Lee, Todd A Lee and Lewis E Kazis
BMC Medicine (in press)

During embargo, article available at:
http://www.biomedcentral.com/imedia/1079483748123574_article.pdf?random=303214

After the embargo, article available from the journal website at:
http://www.biomedcentral.com/bmcmed/

Please quote the journal in any story you write. If you are writing for the web, please link to the article. All articles are available free of charge, according to BioMed Central’s Open Access policy.

Article citation and URL available on request at press@biomedcentral.com on the day of publication

Author contact:
Gina Digravio (Press Office, BUSM) by phone 617-638-8491 or via email Gina.Digravio@bmc.or

BioMed Central (http://www.biomedcentral.com) is an independent online publishing house committed to providing open access to peer-reviewed biological and medical research. This commitment is based on the view that immediate free access to research and the ability to freely archive and reuse published information is essential to the rapid and efficient communication of science.

BioMed Central currently publishes over 160 journals across biology and medicine. In addition to open-access original research, BioMed Central also publishes reviews, commentaries and other non-original-research content. Depending on the policies of the individual journal, this content may be open access or provided only to subscribers.