Connect
MJA
MJA

News briefs

Med J Aust 2021; 215 (2): . || doi: 10.5694/mja2.51171
Published online: 19 July 2021

The use of statin therapy in adults aged 65 years or older is not associated with incident dementia, mild cognitive impairment (MCI) or decline in individual cognition domains, according to Australian research published in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology. Researchers from the Menzies Institute for Medical Research, Monash University and Curtin University analysed data from the ASPirin in Reducing Events in the Elderly (ASPREE) trial. ASPREE was a large prospective, randomised placebo‐controlled trial of daily low‐dose aspirin, which included 19 114 participants aged 65 years or older with no previous cardiovascular event, dementia or major physical disability, between 2010 and 2014 from Australia and the United States. After exclusions for missing values for cognitive test scores and/or covariates at baseline, 18 846 participants were grouped by their baseline statin use versus non‐statin use, with 5898 (31.3%) of participants taking statins. After a median of 4.7 years of follow‐up, researchers found 566 incident cases of dementia (including probable Alzheimer disease [AD] and mixed presentations). Compared with no statin use, statin use was not associated with risk of all‐cause dementia, probable AD or mixed presentations of dementia. There were 380 incident cases of myocardial infarction (MI) found (including MI consistent with AD and MI‐other). Compared with no statin use, statin use was not associated with risk of MI, MI consistent with AD, or other MI. There was no statistically significant difference in the change of composite cognition and any individual cognitive domains between statin users compared with non‐statin users. No significant differences were found in any of the outcomes of interest between users of hydrophilic and lipophilic statins. However, researchers did find interaction effects between baseline cognitive ability and statin therapy for all dementia outcomes.




Correspondence: 

Author

remove_circle_outline Delete Author
add_circle_outline Add Author

Comment
Do you have any competing interests to declare? *

I/we agree to assign copyright to the Medical Journal of Australia and agree to the Conditions of publication *
I/we agree to the Terms of use of the Medical Journal of Australia *
Email me when people comment on this article

Online responses are no longer available. Please refer to our instructions for authors page for more information.