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October 29, 2008
Accidental Science? Statins help pneumonia?
The death rate among people hospitalized for pneumonia was one-third lower for those taking statins than for those not taking the cholesterol-lowering drugs, a Danish study found.While the findings are preliminary and offer hope, more research is needed before doctors can prescribe statins as infection fighters, experts said.
. . .
But statins are known to have an anti-inflammatory effect, Thomsen said, and "we are just beginning to understand that systemic infections such as pneumonia cause inflammation that may trigger a lot of adverse reactions in human bodies."
It's possible that other factors, such as the "healthy-user effect," meaning that people who take statins are in better shape and take better care of themselves, might explain the results of the study, Thomsen added.
"However, we aimed to control for most of the confounding factors in the analyses," he said. "I do not find it likely that confounding explains the whole statin effect."
Other drugs for coronary conditions, such as beta-blockers and aspirin, did not have any effect on pneumonia mortality in the study, Thomsen noted.
They're going to look some more - and check on statins and severe infections and sepsis. The article actually sounds a note of caution:
Until such studies are done, Thomsen said, "I think it is too early to make recommendations about statin therapy for severe infection or treatment. We have learned from the lesson of hormone-replacement therapy and antioxidants, when some doctors and drug companies prematurely recommended drugs on the basis of positive observational studies, that therapeutic recommendations should not be based on animal studies, plausible biological mechanisms, and findings from observational studies."
Posted by CrankyProfessor at October 29, 2008 7:14 AM