Anti-cholesterol drugs can cut sepsis risk: study
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Cholesterol-lowering drugs called statins can reduce the risk of severe infection in patients suffering from heart disease or stroke, scientists said on Wednesday.
Statins lower cholesterol by inhibiting an enzyme that controls how much of this fat is produced in the body.
In a study involving data on 69,000 elderly patients, the researchers said the drugs cut hospital admissions for sepsis by nearly 20 percent in patients who had been previously been treated for cardiovascular disease.
“The use of statins in patients older than 65 years old with atherosclerosis (also referred to as “hardening of the arteries”) was associated with a 19-percent reduced risk of sepsis,” said Dr. Donald Redelmeier, of Sunnybrook & Women’s Hospital in Ontario, Canada, who headed the research team.
Sepsis is a serious infection caused by bacteria in the blood. It is particularly dangerous in the elderly and critically ill patients and can lead to organ failure and death.
Redelmeier and researchers from the University of Toronto studied data on older patients who had been hospitalized for stroke or heart problems. More than 34,000 had been prescribed a statin within 90 days of being discharged from hospital and an equal number had not been given the drugs.
After two years, 551 patients who had been taking statins were admitted to hospital for sepsis, compared with 667 patients in the control group.
The researchers, whose findings are reported online in The Lancet medical journal, call for more clinical trials to test the effectiveness of statins against sepsis.
Pfizer’s Lipitor, Merck’s Zocor and AstraZeneca’s Crestor are among the leading statin drugs.
A raised cholesterol level, along with smoking, diabetes, high blood pressure and being overweight or obese, are risk factors for heart disease, one of the biggest killers in Western countries.
Statins, which are taken by millions of people to reduce levels of LDL, the “bad” cholesterol, have also been shown to reduce the risk of stroke.
LDL deposits fat in the arteries while HDL, or the “good” cholesterol, carries it away.
French researchers who studied the impact of the drugs on Alzheimer’s disease patients said they may also help delay the progression of dementia.
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