Cholesterol-lowering drugs may accelerate onset of Parkinson’s disease, according to researchers

‘Statins are a type of cholesterol-lowering drug typically prescribed to patients at risk of cardiovascular disease. Although they may provide relief from heart conditions, the same can’t be said of their effects on the brain. A recent study by researchers from the Penn State College of Medicine has presented a troubling fact about these drugs: the use of statins may increase a person’s susceptibility to Parkinson’s disease.
For their study, the researchers extricated and studied data from a database of insurance claims. Out of the 50 million people registered in the database, they were able to identify 22,000 people suffering from Parkinson’s disease. They then narrowed it down to just 2,322 people who had been recently diagnosed with the condition.
Those Parkinson’s disease patients were then each paired up with another person from the database who didn’t have Parkinson’s disease. Finally, the researchers determined who had been taking a statin, and the length of time before the symptoms of the disease manifested. The results, which have been published in Movement Disorders, showed a definite connection between Parkinson’s disease and statin use.’
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