RECENT research has shown that statin use amongst older adults with heart failure (HF) may be associated with lower risk of dementia. “Given HF’s strong association with cognitive impairment and its assorted complications, potential strategies to reduce the risk of dementia in patients with HF are urgently needed,” commented the authors, emphasising the importance of this research.
The population-based study, carried out by Qing-Wen Ren, University of Hong Kong Shenzhen Hospital, China, involved analysing data from 104,295 adults (mean age: 74 years; 50.3% male) with a diagnosis of HF from 2004–2018, using the Hong Kong Clinical Data Analysis and Reporting System (CDARS) database. The risks of all-cause dementia and its subtypes were estimated among adults prescribed statin therapy (n=54,004), and those not prescribed statins (n=50,291).
During a median follow-up of 9.9 years, 9.6% of patients were diagnosed with dementia. Among those patients, 2,250 had Alzheimer’s disease, 1,831 had vascular dementia, and 5,950 had unspecified dementia. After analysing the results, Ren and team found that statin use was associated with a 20% lower risk for incident dementia, compared to those who did not use statins. Moreover, statin use was associated with a 28% lower risk for Alzheimer’s disease and an 18% lower risk for unspecified dementia. Among the cohort, 60.4% died during follow-up. Statin use was associated with a 30% lower risk for all-cause mortality.
The team concluded: “These findings provided compelling evidence suggesting that statins may employ additional cognitive protective mechanisms, beyond their lipid-lowering effects, in reducing the risk of dementia.” Though this provides valuable evidence for future statin use in older patients with HF, researchers warned that prescription bias may have played a part in these findings. Additionally, more research into the topic may be needed, as information on left ventricular ejection fraction was unavailable, and researchers were unable to determine the precise dosage of statin therapy for each patient.
