New Study To Test Statin-Parkinson's Link

June 8, 2007

Researchers are sufficiently worried by new study results that they are

planning clinical trials involving thousands of people to examine the possible

link

between Parkinson's disease and statins, the world's biggest selling drugs,

reports Patrick Walter in Chemistry & Industry, the magazine of the SCI.

Suggestions of a statin link are not new, but the results of a recent study

linking low LDL cholesterol to Parkinson's provide the strongest evidence to

date that it could be real, because statins work by reducing LDL cholesterol.

The study by researchers at University of North Carolina showed that patients

with low levels of LDL cholesterol are more than three and a half times more

likely to develop Parkinson's disease than those with higher LDL levels.

When asked whether she was concerned by the new results, study leader Xuemei

Huang said: 'Yes I am very concerned, which is why I am planning a

16000-patient prospective study to examine the possible role of statins.' Huang

was quick

to point out, however, that a causal link with statins had not yet been

proven. And Yoav Ben-Shlomo, a professor of clinical epidemiology at University

of

Bristol said that it is also a possibility that LDL cholesterol is a

consequence rather than a cause of Parkinson's.

But according to Huang, the well-established link between Parkinson's and

apoE2, a gene associated with lower LDL cholesterol, supports her theory that

low

LDL is the culprit in many cases of Parkinson's.

Huang says that if there is a link with statins, we could see big surges in

the number of Parkinson's diagnoses in the next five years, because at that

stage, statins will have been in common usage for more than a decade.

Huang's new study will examine the statin link. A total of 16000 patients for

whom 20 years of baseline fasting cholesterol measurements are available will

be involved. Another large-scale trial investigating a cholesterol link with

Parkinson's risk is underway at Harvard. This study differs in that there are

no baseline data available for the study group.

Pfizer's statin Lipitor is the world's biggest selling drug with $12.2bn in

sales in 2005. Parkinson's has previously been linked with pesticides. Pfizer

were unavailable for comment.

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