Covid patients on statins ‘more likely to survive’
TAKING statins increases a patient’s chances of surviving coronavirus, researchers have found.
A study of Covid-19 patients in China found that nearly one in ten who were not taking statins died – but the death rate was only one in 20 among patients given the cholesterol-busting drugs.
The findings have been met with caution by British scientists, as those taking statins may have had other characteristics which made them more likely to survive. In some countries, for example, poorer people are less likely to take statins, and also appear to be more likely to die from Covid-19.
The Chinese researchers found that patients taking statins were also less likely to end up in intensive care or on a ventilator. The patients were put on statins in hospital, although some will have been taking them before they fell ill.
Statins are one of the most commonly prescribed drugs in the UK, where about 7.5 million adults take them to lower their cholesterol and risk of heart attacks and strokes. The study on coronavirus and statins involved 13,981 patients admitted to 21 hospitals in Hubei province, where the pandemic began. About 1,200 were given statins, for 22 days on average.
The researchers matched 861 of these people with almost 3,500 patients not receiving statins, so they were of a similar age, with similar health problems.
Among those taking statins, 5.2 per cent died within 28 days of entering hospital. The death rate was 9.4 per cent among those not taking the drugs. The study, published in the journal Cell Metabolism, also found that patients on statins were 45 per cent less likely to end up on a ventilator.
The authors cautioned that, even if statins protected people against coronavirus, the findings did not show whether they would help people who were not taken to hospital.
Naveed Sattar, professor of metabolic medicine at the University of Glasgow, said: ‘This observational study is of some interest but it is far from proving statins lower risk of Covid-19-related mortality. In some countries, generally better educated people are more commonly on statins, and there is now ample data to show less affluent people have poorer outcomes from Covid-19.’