A study, published in the March issue JAMA’s Archives of Neurology , reports that particularly younger patients who regularly take cholesterol-lowering statin drugs may have a modest reduced risk of developing Parkinson’s disease.

The study’s background information says that statins belong to the most prescribed classes of drugs in the U.S., and whilst some researchers speculate that these drugs may possess neuroprotective qualities due to their anti-inflammatory and immunomodulating effects, they also feature unfavorable effects, such as lowering the level of plasma coenzyme Q10, which could be neuroprotective in patients with Parkinson disease (PD).

Xiang Gao, M.D., Ph.D., of Brigham and Women’s Hospital and Harvard School of Public Health in Boston, and his team set out to perform a prospective study on 38,192 men and 90,874 women who participated in the Health Professional Follow-up study and the Nurses’ Health study, and found that during the 12 year follow up, from 1994 to 2006, 644 participants, i.e. 338 women and 306 men suffered from PD.

The researchers state:

“In summary, we observed an association between regular use of statins and lower risk of developing PD, particularly among younger patients. However, our results should be interpreted with caution because only approximately 70 percent of users of cholesterol-lowering drugs at baseline were actual statin users. Further, the results were only marginally significant and could be due to chance.”

The researchers acknowledge the fact that before 2000, the use of any cholesterol-lowering drug was classified as statin, and that the study inevitably includes some misclassification. Another study limitation is not collecting information on the use of specific statins, which could result in different effects on the central nervous system.

They did note a substantial link between statin use and age with regard to the risk of PD in those who were younger than 60 years at the start of follow-up. However, this was not true amongst those above the age of 60 years.

The researchers point out that in addition to having produced mixed results on statin use and PD risk, epidemiologic studies have also shown that statins potentially have unfavorable effects on the central nervous system.

They conclude by saying:

“In contrast with use of ibuprofen, which has been consistently found to be inversely associated with PD risk in these cohorts as well as in other longitudinal studies, the overall epidemiological evidence relating stain use to PD risk remains unconvincing. Given the potential adverse effects of statins, further prospective observational studies are needed to explore the potential effects of different subtypes of statin on risk of PD and other neurodegenerative diseases.”

Written by Petra Rattue