![]() “One of the first things you learn in medical school is association between statins and myopathy.” Now the answer as to why- along with a potential treatment for it-has emerged from the DNA of just a few patients living with a seemingly unrelated genetic disease. “It seemed too good to be true,” says Joel Morales-Rosado, a pathologist who worked on one of the studies as a postdoctoral researcher at the Mayo Clinic. This connection between a rare disease and a common drug stunned the researchers. And so, the answers to two mysteries suddenly became clear at once: Dysfunction in this enzyme causes muscle weakness from both limb girdle muscular dystrophy and statins. It is, in fact, the very enzyme that statins block in the process of halting cholesterol production. The enzyme is known as HMG-CoA reductase, and to doctors, it is not obscure. and a Bedouin family in Israel, their suspicions separately landed on mutations in a gene encoding a particularly intriguing enzyme. After both teams tracked the disease through a handful of families in the U.S. They were hunting for genes behind a rare disease called limb girdle muscle dystrophy, in which muscles of the upper arms and legs-sound familiar?-become weak and waste away. They weren’t studying cholesterol at all. He’s had patients fall on the street because they couldn’t lift their leg over a curb.īut why should an anticholesterol drug weaken muscles in the arms and legs? Recently, two groups of scientists stumbled upon an answer. A much smaller proportion, less than 1 percent, develop muscle weakness or myopathy severe enough that they find it hard to “climb stairs, get up from a sofa, get up from the toilet,” says Robert Rosenson, a cardiologist at Mount Sinai. Many patients-some 5 percent in clinical trials, and up to 30 percent in observational studies-experience sore and achy muscles, especially in the upper arms and legs. In the meantime, it’s critical to make all health care decisions in consultation with a qualified health care professional… so keep those lines of communication open with your doctor.Statins, one of the most extensively studied drugs on the planet, taken by tens of millions of Americans alone, have long had a perplexing side effect. The message to people with Parkinson’s and those taking statins to reduce cholesterol levels? You’ve heard it before: More research is needed. Still, the vast majority of those who take them never experience any of these serious side effects. ![]() Physicians stress that statins are not for everyone with high cholesterol, and that decisions about their use should be made on an individual basis. According to stories in The New York Times and NBC News, anecdotal evidence has long suggested that statins can cause temporary memory loss and muscle pain, and increase diabetes risk. ![]() The FDA label change, on the other hand, implies a risk in cognitive decline for everyone taking the drugs. Roy Alcalay of Columbia University Medical Center told Health 24 News that he sees at least one takeaway: Statins don’t increase the risk of Parkinson's. Maurizio Facheris, how statins interact with the brain likely depends on a combination of personalized factors. But this is the first study of its kind, and needs to be replicated before anyone can draw serious conclusions about whether statins might lower the risk of Parkinson's. Of the entire group, 644 were diagnosed with Parkinson's.Ĭompelling numbers. Here’s how the Archives of Neurology study went down: Researchers from Harvard Medical School followed more than 38,000 men and nearly 91,000 women over the course of 12 years, and found that those taking statins were less likely to develop Parkinson's than those who did not. How can statins both lower risk for a neurological disease like Parkinson's and increase the chances of memory loss and cognitive decline? Are these drugs good or bad for the brain? Even our CEO, Todd Sherer, one of the smartest guys we know, had to admit that something didn’t compute.Īs is often the case in the world of drug developmental science, answers aren’t easy to come by. This information will be added to the labels of brand names such as Lipitor, Zocor, and Crestor. In that corner: The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has officially acknowledged that statins carry a risk of cognitive side effects. In this corner: A study published in the March edition of Archives of Neurology suggests that people taking statins - the most prescribed drugs in the world - may slightly lower their risk of developing Parkinson's disease (PD). This week, competing reports on cholesterol lowering drugs called statins, and the effects they have on the brains of those who take them, have popped up in the press.
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