AD Risk Is Not Lower With Fungus-Derived Statins

Despite previous evidence to the contrary, fungus-derived statins may actually be associated with a greater risk of Alzheimer disease (AD) than synthetic and hydrophilic statins.

In order to investigate the differences in the effects of fungus-derived and synthetic statins on AD risk, researchers examined data from a population-based retrospective cohort of patients aged 60 years and older who were newly prescribed statins between January 1994 and December 2012.
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Over the 18-year study, 465,085 statin users were identified, including 7669 who developed AD. Compared with synthetic statins, fungus-derived statins were associated with an increased risk of AD (hazard ratio [HD] 1.09, 95% CI 1.03–1.15). Lipophilic statins were also associated with higher AD risk (HR 1.18, 95% CI 1.09–1.27).

“The modest variations in the risk of incident AD observed between statin characteristics needs to be evaluated in future studies on their possible heterogeneous neuroprotective effect,” the researchers concluded.

—Michael Potts

Reference:

Sinyavskaya L, Gauthier S, Renoux C, et al. Comparative effect of statins on the risk of incident Alzheimer disease [published online December 15, 2017]. Neurology. doi:https://doi.org/10.1212/WNL.0000000000004818.