Statins ‘can reduce risk of getting Alzheimer’s’

TAKING statins may ward off the development of Alzheimer’s disease, a major study suggests.

People who consistently took the cholesterol-busting pills for at least two years saw their risk of developing Alzheimer’s over the following five years fall.

Women who had taken statins saw their risk fall by 15 per cent, while the figure was 12 per cent for men.

The findings, based on the health records of nearly 400,000 American over-65s tracked from 2006 until 2013, is the strongest evidence yet that statins may help stall the development of the disease.

In the first two years the researchers, from the University of Southern California Los Angeles, tracked whether the participants took statins, and how consistently they took them.

For the next five years they tracked them for the development of Alzheimer’s, the most common form of dementia. Overall,

‘We may not need to wait for a cure’

1.72 per cent of women and 1.32 per cent of men received an Alzheimer’s diagnosis each year.

But those who took statins were less likely to develop the disease, and that risk fell further if they took their drugs more consistently.

An estimated 850,000 people in the UK suffer with dementia, of which 500,000 have Alzheimer’s disease.

Despite years of research, scientists have yet to come up with a drug that can slow the underlying causes of the disease, or reverse it when it has struck.

But Dr Julie Zissimopoulos, who led the study published in the JAMA Neurology medical journal, said: ‘We may not need to wait for a cure to make a difference for patients currently at risk of the disease.

‘Existing drugs, alone or in combination, may affect Alzheimer’s risk.

‘We looked to statins as a candidate because they are widely used and have resulted in the reduction of cholesterol.’