Men not taking statins with higher total cholesterol levels — above 180 mg/dL — were 18-29% less likely to get Parkinson’s disease than those with lower cholesterol levels.

Men not taking statins with the middle one-third total cholesterol levels — above 180 mg/dL — were 18% less likely to get Parkinson’s during an average follow-up of 7.9 years compared to men with the one-third lowest total cholesterol levels.

Men not taking statins with the highest one-third total cholesterol levels were 29% less likely to get Parkinson’s compared to men with the one-third lowest total cholesterol levels.

(I have requested a copy of the paper to get exact cholesterol levels for each group. I will update this article when I do.)

The one-third of people with the highest cholesterol levels were 57% less likely to get Parkinson’s during a 20-year follow-up compared to the one-third of people with the lowest cholesterol levels according to a recent study.

The one-third of people with the middle cholesterol levels were 44% less likely to get Parkinson’s compared to the one-third of people with the lowest cholesterol levels.

The say this the other way, the one-third of people with the lowest cholesterol levels were 2.3 times more likely to get Parkinson’s than the one-third of people with the highest cholesterol levels, and they were 1.8 times more likely to get Parkinson’s compared to the one-third of people with the middle cholesterol levels.

“Our study suggests that lowering cholesterol unnecessarily actually may harm the brain,”  Xuemei Huang, MD, PhD lead author of the study was quoted as saying.

The most popular statins increase the risk of Parkinson’s Disease by 58% according to new study.

These are the lipophilic statins, meaning that they dissolve in fats, which include atorvastatin (Lipitor), fluvastatin (Lescol), lovastatin (Mevacor), pitavastatin (Livalo), simvastatin (Zocor).

People taking both a statin and a nonstatin to lower cholesterol levels had a 95% increased risk of Parkinson’s compared to people taking neither according to a new study.

Nonstatin cholesterol-lowering drugs included fenofibrate (Trilipix, Tricor, Triglide, Antara, Lipofen, Fibricor, Lofibra, and Fenoglide), ezetimibe (Zetia), and niacin.

This study found that the most popular statins increase the risk of Parkinson’s Disease by 58%.

These are the lipophilic statins, meaning that they dissolve in fats, which include atorvastatin (Lipitor), fluvastatin (Lescol), lovastatin (Mevacor), pitavastatin (Livalo), simvastatin (Zocor).

Among people who had never smoked, people who drank 3.1 to 5 cups of coffee per day had a 31% lower risk of dying from a neurological disease (Alzheimer’s or Parkinson’s) over some number of years compared to people who were not coffee drinkers according to an analysis of data from 74,890 women in the Nurses’ Health Study, 93,054 women in the Nurses’ Health Study II, and 40,557 men in the Health Professionals Follow-up Study.

People who consumed more than 5 cups of coffee per day had a 40% lower risk of dying from a neurological disease (Alzheimer’s or Parkinson’s) compared to non-drinkers.

Statin use is associated with a 61% greater risk of Parkinson’s disease according to an analysis of data on 30,343,035 people aged 40 to 65 years between January 1, 2008 and December 31, 2012.

This was after adjusting for age, sex, and other comorbidities, such as hyperlipidemia, diabetes, hypertension, and coronary artery disease.

“We identified 20,000 Parkinson’s disease patients and looked at whether using statins was associated with a higher or lower risk, and we found people using statins have a higher risk of the disease, so this is the opposite of what has been hypothesized,” senior author Xuemei Huang, MD, PhD, vice chair for research at Penn State College of Medicine, Hershey, Pennsylvania, told Medscape Medical News.

“Our study suggests that lowering cholesterol unnecessarily actually may harm the brain,”  Xuemei Huang, MD, PhD lead author of the study was quoted as saying.

Previous research has failed to recognize this or reported the opposite, that statins lower the risk of Parkinson’s, because previous studies have failed to adjust for cholesterol levels.

Each mmol per liter (39 mg/dL) increase in cholesterol levels decreases the risk of developing Parkinson’s Disease by 23% according to a recent review paper titled The Ugly Side of Statins.

“The risk reduction was significant in women but not in men,” the paper notes.