Statins associated with 4.4-fold greater risk of memory loss

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Tuesday, August 04, 2015 4:52 am Email this article

Cholesterol-lowering drugs known as statins are associated with a 4.4-fold greater risk of acute memory loss within one month of starting them according to a new study published in JAMA Internal Medicine.

NON-statin cholesterol-lowering drugs were also associated with an increased risk of acute memory loss—a 3.6-fold greater risk—within one month of starting them.

Conclusion

Author’s conclusion

“Both statin and nonstatin LLDs [lipid-lowering drugs] were strongly associated with acute memory loss in the first 30 days following exposure
in users compared with nonusers,” the authors of the paper concluded.

Subjects

Study Subjects

The study compared 482,543 statin users with 2 control groups: 482,543 matched nonusers of any LLDs [lipid-lowering drugs] and all 26,484 users of nonstatin LLDs [non-statin lipid-lowering drugs].

Reference

Strom BL, Schinnar R, Karlawish J, Hennessy S, Teal V, and Bilker WB. Statin Therapy and Risk of Acute Memory Impairment. JAMA Intern Med, 2015 Aug 1; 175(8): 1399-1405. http://archinte.jamanetwork.com/article.aspx?articleID=2301148

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• Cholesterol

• Cholesterol drugs

• Statins