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Statins not linked to short-term memory loss, may prevent dementia
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A new review and meta-analysis suggests that statins have no effect on short-term cognition and may help prevent dementia in the long term.
Debate over the link between statins and memory loss has intensified since the FDA in February 2012 required changes on statin labels after some patients experienced ill-defined memory loss and confusion while taking statins, according to information from the study background.
“We took a systematic and very rigorous approach, looked at all the studies in cohort, summed up the findings, and found that for the average patient who has no issues with memory or confusion to start off with there is no evidence in the literature to support the idea that a statin medication would cause those sort of side effects,” Kristopher J. Swiger, MD, of Johns Hopkins University, told Cardiology Today.
Kristopher J. Swiger
Swiger and colleagues analyzed 16 studies that met eligibility for qualitative synthesis and 11 for quantitative synthesis. All were high-quality randomized controlled trials or prospective cohort studies that included adults with no history of cognitive dysfunction at baseline.
Eight studies related to short-term cognition were included in qualitative synthesis. The analysis “did not show any consistent effect of statin therapy on cognitive endpoints,” the researchers wrote. Three of the short-term studies had sufficient Digit Symbol Substitution Testing data for quantitative synthesis. There was no difference in mean change from baseline to follow-up between the statin and placebo groups (mean change, 1.65; 95% CI, –0.03 to 3.32; 296 total exposures).
Eight studies related to dementia prevention covering 23,443 participants with a mean exposure duration of 3 to 25 years were included in the qualitative and quantitative syntheses. The researchers reported that three studies found no association between statin use and onset of dementia, and five found a favorable effect of statin use on incident dementia. Pooled results from those studies indicated that statin-treated patients had a 29% reduction in incident dementia compared with controls (HR=0.71; 95% CI, 0.61-0.82). That result did not change when four other studies with a higher risk for bias were added to the analysis (HR=0.71; 95% CI, 0.68-0.74.). The researchers calculated an absolute risk reduction of 2% (95% CI, 1-3) and a number needed to treat of 50 (95% CI, 33-100) from five studies with mean follow-up time of 6 years.
“I would say that this is reassuring for everyday clinicians,” Swiger said in an interview. “They can rest assured that these potential side effects … don’t happen, and that they shouldn’t change their present practice guidelines based on” media reports linking statins and memory loss.
Swiger said the dementia findings can only be considered hypothesis-generating because they were not based on randomized trials. “Maybe someone will design a randomized trial to see if statins can lower the risk for dementia.”
Disclosure: The researchers report no relevant financial disclosures.
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