Statin, a type of drug used to lower blood pressure may also slow down the development of later-stage multiple sclerosis (MS), a progressive disease that affects the brain and the spinal cord and is characterized by a range of symptoms that include cramps, nausea, numbness, depression and memory loss.
In a study published in the medical journal The Lancet March 19, researchers sought to find out if Simvastatin with its immunomodulatory and neuroprotective properties has beneficial effects on patients with secondary progressive multiple sclerosis.
By involving 140 patients with secondary progressive MS who either received simvastatin or placebo from Jan 28, 2008 to Nov 4, 2011, the researchers found evidence that suggests taking large dose of the cheap cholesterol-lowering drug can slow down MS when it reaches its chronic and more debilitating phase.
"High-dose simvastatin reduced the annualised rate of whole-brain atrophy compared with placebo, and was well tolerated and safe. These results support the advancement of this treatment to phase 3 testing," the researchers reported.
The researchers observed that the patients who received simvastatin exhibit less symptoms of disability than participants who received placebo. Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scans also showed that the brains of the subjects who received simvastatin shrank 43 percent slower than those who received placebo.
"The adjusted difference in atrophy rate between groups was -0·254% per year (95% CI -0·422 to -0·087; p=0·003); a 43% reduction in annualised rate," the researchers reported. "Simvastatin was well tolerated, with no differences between the placebo and simvastatin groups in proportions of participants who had serious adverse events (14 [20%] vs nine [13%])."
The brain shrinks by about 0.6 percent per year among patients in their later stage of MS but researchers found that the subjects who received simvastatin dropped their average atrophy rate to 0.3 percent per year.
"In the progressive stage of MS the brain shrinks by about 0.6% a year. Our main measure of success was to reduce the rate of brain atrophy", explained study researcher Jeremy Chataway of University College London Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust in the UK.
Study researcher Richard Nicholas of Imperial College in London, said that the findings of their study are promising because statins are cheap and widely available, which could make it easier to be rolled out quickly as an MS treatment.
"At the moment, we don't have anything that can stop patients from becoming more disabled once MS reaches the progressive phase," Nicholas said. "Discovering that statins can help slow that deterioration is quite a surprise."
