Parkinson's disease risk found higher for statin users

April 6, 2017

Takeaway 

   

•  Statin users were more likely to develop Parkinson's disease, especially in the first few years of use and when taking the drugs with nonstatin lipid-lowering drugs.

Why this matters

•  A large share of the population takes statins, and their association with neurologic conditions is unclear in part because of publication bias.

Key results 

•  Statin users had an elevated risk for Parkinson's disease relative to nonusers.

•  In stratified analysis, risk was elevated for users of lipophilic statins (OR, 1.58; P<.0001), but not users of hydrophilic statins.

•  Greatest elevation of risk was seen for individuals taking both statins and nonstatin lipid-lowering medications (OR, 1.95; P<.0001).

•  Odds were highest in the first year of use (OR, 1.82), fell between 1 and 2.5 y (OR, 1.75), and fell even more thereafter (OR, 1.37) (P_trend<.0001).

Study design

•  A retrospective case-control study using claims data of 2322 patients with incident Parkinson's disease and 2322 matched control individuals without the disease.

•  The main outcome was Parkinson's disease.

•  Funding: Tobacco Commonwealth Universal Research Enhancement Program (CURE) General Clinical Research Center.

Limitations

•  Only commercially insured individuals were included.

•  Patients with Parkinson's disease were identified with diagnosis codes.

•  Lipid levels were not available.

References:

Liu G, Sterling NW, Kong L, Lewis MM, Mailman RB, Chen H, Leslie D, Huang X. Statins may facilitate Parkinson's disease: Insight gained from a large, national claims database. Mov Disord. 2017 Apr 3 [Epub ahead of print]. doi: 10.1002/mds.27006. PMID: 28370314

https://www.univadis.com/viewarticle/parkinson-s-disease-risk-found-higher-for-statin-users-503325?s1=news