Statins Reduce Risk of Dementia/Alzheimer's Disease: a Systematic Review and Meta-analysis of Observational Studies
Pooled 32% Risk Reduction in Alzheimer's Disease Over a Few Years
By Peter A. McCullough, MD, MPH
I have had several patients tell me they don’t want to take statins because they are afraid the drugs will cause brain fog or dementia. In Dr. David Brownstein’s book The Statin Disaster, on page 172, he claims FDA reports from 2004-2014 “caused” the following cases: 4720 amnesia, 7171 confused states, 1577 dementia, 2,054 disorientation, and 13,290 depression. The prevalence of statin use in adult Americans is 25.5% or ~65.9 million people. I wondered if these sparse cases over ten years had any relationship to statin use when compared placebo or those not taking statins.
Olmastroni et al conducted a meta-analysis of the available studies the reported the occurrence of dementia or specifically Alzheimer’s disease with statin use.
“In the pooled analyses, statins were associated with a decreased risk of dementia [36 studies, OR 0.80 (CI 0.75-0.86)] and of AD [21 studies, OR 0.68 (CI 0.56-0.81)]. In the stratified analysis by sex, no difference was observed in the risk reduction of dementia between men [OR 0.86 (CI 0.81-0.92)] and women [OR 0.86 (CI 0.81-0.92)]. Similar risks were observed for lipophilic and hydrophilic statins for both dementia and AD, while high-potency statins showed a 20% reduction of dementia risk compared with a 16% risk reduction associated with low-potency statins, suggesting a greater efficacy of the former, although a borderline statistical significance (P = 0.05) for the heterogeneity between estimates.”
These data suggest that statins are not a “disaster” but rather protect against the occurrence of dementia and more specifically Alzheimer’s disease. In my view we can cross cognitive impairment or dementia off the list of concerns for statins as we use and take them to prevent heart attack, stroke, need for stenting or bypass surgery, and cardiac death.
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Peter A. McCullough, MD, MPH
President, McCullough Foundation
I believe my own eyes over your analysis. I've seen probably a dozen or so elderly patients on polypharmacy whose cognitive function improved within days of stopping their statins. Set against the reduced risk of cardiovascular disease (which is questionable for those on statins for primary prevention), it is most definitely worth trying a trial without statin in patients with declining memory/ cognitive function.
And there is a mechanism behind it as cholesterol is vital for brain health. My sickest elderly patients are the ones with very low cholesterol and LDL.
This is the first article I have come across where I feel Dr. McCullough has not done a deep dive- sad to say- please do your own due diligence and look for yourself. David Esaul Munoz MD
-Hmm?