Cholesterol drug may impair brain function
Be on the lookout for delayed reflexes in patients taking a dug commonly prescribed to lower cholesterol. Lovastatin (Merck’s Mevacor and mevinolin) may affect a person’s ability to drive or perform other everyday tasks, researchers at the University of Pittsburgh told attendees at the meeting of the American Heart Association (AHA) last November in Orlando, FL. Patients whose cholesterol was lowered with the agent paid less attention and had delayed reflexes.
Study is very, very borderline’
But AHA president-elect Valentin Fuster, MD, downplayed the study as "very, very borderline" in terms of statistical significance. "It’s hard for me to believe that the use of a statin can affect cognitive function," he said at the meeting.
A group of 194 otherwise healthy adults aged 25 to 60 participated in the study. After six months, cholesterol levels fell, but patients who had been given lovastatin showed decreased attention and psychomotor speed compared with those who had not received the drug. Those who had the greatest decreases in cholesterol levels suffered the greatest impairment. Fuster said earlier studies involving thousands of patients taking anti-cholesterol drugs had found no obvious impairment of behavior.
Eva Kline-Rogers, MS, RN, Researcher, the University of Michigan Medical Center, Lansing, MI. Telephone: (313) 936-9566.
Joanne Tolliver, PharmD, Director, Pharmacy Services, Middletown Regional Hospital, Middletown, OH. Telephone: (513) 420-5755.
Deborah D. Smith, RN, ED Staff Nurse, Duke University Medical Center, Durham, NC. Telephone: (919) 220-3370.
Esther Perez, Paramedic Instructor, Ingham Region Medical Center, Lansing, MI. Telephone: (517) 694-6488.
Alastair Wood, Professor of Medicine and Pharmacology, Vanderbilt University, Nashville, TN. Telephone: (615) 322-5000.
T.J. Bourschel, MS, Administrator, The Heart Institute of St. Petersburg, St. Petersburg, FL. Telephone: (813) 824-8338.
Evelyn Eskin, MBA, President, HealthPower Associates Inc., Philadelphia. Telephone: (215) 893-0263.
Donald Baim, MD, and Roger Laham, MD, Beth Israel-Deaconess Medical Center, Boston, MA. Telephone: (617) 667-5628.
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