Lowering One Risk While Raising Another

November 9, 2016  Author: Beth Greenwood

Statin medications found to increase risk of developing Parkinson's disease.

Physicians whose patients have high cholesterol often recommend cholesterol-lowering medications called statins. But there are new concerns about those recommendations.

A recent study found that people prescribed statin medications had an increased risk of Parkinson's disease, contradicting previous research that indicated a benefit.

Parkinson's disease is a nervous system disorder that includes stiffness and trembling. It cannot be cured and typically progresses over time. Previous research indicated that high cholesterol levels protect patients from Parkinson's disease.

The University of California at San Diego reported that other documented statin side effects include changes in liver function, muscle tissue damage, depression, irritability, pain and problems with memory and concentration.

"We identified 20,000 Parkinson's disease patients and looked at whether using statins was associated with a higher or lower risk and we found people using statins have a higher risk of the disease," senior author Xuemei Huang, MD, PhD, said. "So this is the opposite of what has been hypothesized."

Dr. Huang is the vice chair for research at Penn State College of Medicine in Hershey, Pennsylvania.

Dr. Huang and research colleagues found in a previous small study that statin use was associated with increased risk of Parkinson's disease, and wanted to see if the findings could be confirmed in a larger study.

The researchers analyzed medical claims data on 30,343,035 people of ages 40 to 65 between Jan. 1, 2008, and Dec. 31, 2012. Of those people, 21,559 had confirmed Parkinson's disease.

Dr. Huang and the research team found that patients who used statin medications were 1.6 times more likely to develop Parkinson's disease.

"We know that overall weight of the literature favors that higher cholesterol is associated with beneficial outcomes in Parkinson's disease, so it's possible that statins take away that protection by treating the high cholesterol," Dr Huang said. "Another possibility is that statins can block not only the cholesterol synthesis but also synthesis of coenzyme Q10 that is essential for cell function."

The study was presented as an abstract at the American Neurological Association 2016 Annual Meeting on Oct. 16.

The study was funded by the National Institutes of Health, Pennsylvania State University College of Medicine-Milton S. Hershey Medical Center, General Clinical Research Center, GCRC Construction, and the Center for Applied Studies in Health Economics.

None of the authors reported a relevant conflict of interest.

The authors have disclosed no relevant financial relationships.

http://www.dailyrxnews.com/statin-medications-found-increase-risk-developing-parkinsons-disease