Statins may help prevent Alzheimer's: study

[TZ]

Statin drugs may help prevent the brain damage that leads to Alzheimer's disease, U.S. researchers reported on Monday.


Their study, published in the journal Neurology, bolsters a growing body of research that suggests the popular cholesterol-lowering drugs may reduce the risk of Alzheimer's.

Most studies have simply compared people who take statin drugs to those who do not, and track the rate of Alzheimer's.

"But our study is the first to compare the brains of people who had received statins with those who had not," said Dr. Gail Ge Li of the University of Washington School of Medicine in Seattle, who worked on the study.

Li and colleagues examined the brains of 110 people aged 65 to 79 who had donated their brains for research after they died as part of a study when they were still living.

The researchers looked at the brains for evidence of the plaques and tangles that characterize Alzheimer's, an incurable and progressive brain disease that is the leading cause of dementia.

They found significantly fewer tangles in the brains of people who had taken statins than in those who had not.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20070827/hl_nm/alzheimers_statins_dc