Statins protect against Alzheimer’s in most patients

Statins taken to reduce cholesterol also protect most patients against Alzheimer’s disease, but the decrease in risk varies across different statins and by the patient’s gender and race/ethnicity, according to a published report.

In particular, none of the statins assessed in this study affected the risk of developing Alzheimer’s disease among black men, said at the University of Southern California, Los Angeles.

They analyzed data for 399,979 adults aged 65 and older who initiated statin therapy during a two-year period and were followed for another seven years for the development of Alzheimer’s disease. The mean interval between statin exposure and Alzheimer’s diagnosis was 5.4 years.

The study population included 310,240 non-Hispanic white people, 32,658 Hispanic people, 32, 278 non-Hispanic black people, and 24,803 people of Asian, Native American, other, or unknown race/ ethnicity. The investigators confined their analysis to the four most commonly prescribed statins: simvastatin, atorvastatin, pravastatin and rosuvastatin. Overall, 1.72 percent of women and 1.32 percent of men were diagnosed as having Alzheimer’s disease during each year of follow-up.

Study participants who were exposed to higher statin levels during the two-year exposure period were 10 percent less likely to receive an Alzheimer’s diagnosis during follow-up than were those exposed to lower level of statins, across all four statins.

The association, however, varied across gender and race/ethnicity. Statins decreased the risk of Alzheimer’s the most among Hispanic men, followed by black women, white women, and white men but they did not decrease the risk of Alzheimer’s among black men.