Be Careful How You Lower Your Cholesterol Levels, as the Risk of Developing Dementia Could Also Increase

Keeping an eye on our cholesterol levels is important for maintaining a healthy life. A reading from 200 to 239mg/dL is easily considered borderline high, while a reading that exceeds 240mg/dL and above means high.

Taking statins for lowering those annoying cholesterol levels isn’t a bad idea, but a new study raises awareness about it. A new article from SciTechDaily announces that drugs used for lowering cholesterol levels in a person’s blood could be linked to increasing the risk of developing dementia, according to new research presented during the Society of Nuclear Medicine and Molecular Imaging 2021 Annual Meeting.

Patients with mild cognitive impairment must be careful

The new study claims that those patients who suffer from mild cognitive impairment should avoid taking lipophilic statins, as they can double the risk of developing some form of dementia compared to those who choose not to take statins.
Prasanna Padmanabham, the head of the project, said as cited by SciTechDaily:

There have been many conflicting studies on the effects of statin drugs on cognition,
While some claim that satins protect users against dementia, others assert that they accelerate the development of dementia. Our study aimed to clarify the relationship between statin use and subject’s long-term cognitive trajectory.

For the new study, the researchers analyzed eight years of subject clinical data. They separated the participants into groups based on a few parameters: baseline cholesterol levels, baseline cognitive status, and the type of statin used. The participants have gone through 18F-FDG PET imaging for identifying regions of declining cerebral metabolism for each statin group.

The PET imaging of lipophilic statin users also revealed a decline in metabolism for the posterior cingulate cortex, meaning the region of the brain that declines the most significantly when Alzheimer’s disease starts to do its thing.