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Statins Now Associated With Lowering Deaths from
Pneumonia
July 25, 2005 Add one more to the benefits of
taking statins, the widely used cholesterol-lowering drugs. The latest
news is that patients hospitalized with pneumonia were less likely to
die if they had been taking statins before they were admitted. Statins
have already been shown to be beneficial in treating diabetes, heart
disease, vascular disease and high cholesterol.
Pneumonia is the seventh most common cause of death
and the leading cause of death from infection in the USA, where it kills
up to 40,000 people every year those most at risk are very young
children, elderly people and patients with underlying health problems
such as AIDS or chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (CPOD). The
disease is caused by viruses or bacteria, which are becoming resistant
to the antibiotics used to treat bacterial pneumonia.
These results are published today in the Open
Access journal Respiratory Research.
Eric Mortensen and colleagues, from the University
of Texas Health Centre at San Antonio measured the risk of dying from
pneumonia in patients admitted with pneumonia who were taking statins
prior to their entry into hospital.
They compared it with the risk of dying from the
disease in pneumonia patients who were not taking statins. The authors
used the Pneumonia Severity Index to rate the risk of dying within 30
days of admission to hospital in the two groups of patients. The results
of their statistical analysis show that patients who were on a statin
when they entered hospital were 2.8 times less likely to die than
patients who were not on statins.
"Prior outpatient statin use was associated with
decreased mortality in patients hospitalized with community-acquired
pneumonia despite their use being associated with comorbid illnesses
likely to contribute to increased mortality", write the authors.
Our results add an additional potential benefit of
statin use to the already compelling data for their use in patients with
coronary artery disease, hypercholesterolemia, diabetes, and peripheral
vascular disease, say the authors.. Additionally, patients with
diabetes and vascular disease are at higher risk for either contracting
pneumonia or dying from pneumonia when they do contract it.
More research is needed to explain the protective
effect of statins on patients suffering from pneumonia, they say.
Statins act on the cholesterol-regulating enzyme HMG-CoA reductase, but
they are also known to affect the immune system and this might explain
their effect on pneumonia patients.
About the source:
The effect of prior statin use on 30-day mortality
for patients hospitalized with community-acquired pneumonia Eric M.
Mortensen, Marcos I. Restrepo, Antonio Anzueto, Jacqueline Pugh
Respiratory Research in press (25 july 2005)
This article is available free of charge, according
to Respiratory Research's Open Access policy at:
http://respiratory-research.com/
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