Statins may cut pneumonia death risks
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Cholesterol-fighting drugs known as statins reduced the risk of dying from pneumonia or developing dangerous blood clots in the legs, adding to a growing list of benefits from the popular drugs, two research groups said on Monday.
Statins, the world's top-selling drugs, cut heart attack and stroke risk, and research has suggested other benefits including possibly protecting against Alzheimer's disease.
Some studies have linked statin use with decreased risk of severe sepsis -- infection of the bloodstream -- or death associated with infections, but there had been conflicting findings on pneumonia, according to Dr. Reimar Thomsen of Aarhus University and Aalborg Hospital in Denmark.
Thomsen led a new study tracking 29,900 patients treated for pneumonia in Denmark that found that those who were taking statins before hospitalization had a 31 percent lower risk of dying from pneumonia than those who were not.
About 5 percent of the people in the study were taking statins before developing pneumonia, an inflammation of the lungs generally caused by an infection, the researchers said.
Among those not taking statins, 16 percent died within 30 days of being hospitalized with pneumonia and 22 percent died within 90 days, the researchers wrote in the Archives of Internal Medicine.
Among statin users, 10 percent died within 30 days of hospitalization and 17 percent died within 90 days.
"In recent years, researchers found out that statins have a lot of effects besides cholesterol lowering. They are anti-inflammatory drugs that dampen inflammatory cells and stabilize the (blood) vessels," Thomsen said by e-mail.
Many patients with pneumonia die of overwhelming inflammation, and statins may help dampen this inflammation, Thomsen said. The drugs also may decrease the risk of heart attack and stroke that may be triggered by inflammation associated with severe infection, Thomsen added.
Separately, researchers at Albert Einstein Medical Center in Philadelphia found that statins may help prevent the development of deep vein thrombosis, or DVT, in which blood clots form usually in the lower leg or thigh.
In a group of people with several different types of cancer, 21 percent of those not taking statins developed DVT and pulmonary embolism, a sometimes-fatal condition in which a blood clot typically from the legs blocks an artery in the lung, compared to 8 percent of those who took statins, the researchers found.
The findings were presented at a meeting of the American College of Chest Physicians.
Statins include atorvastatin, made by Pfizer Inc under the brand name Lipitor; pravastatin or Pravachol, made by Bristol-Myers Squibb; fluvastatin, made by Novartis AG under the brand name Lescol, and several others.
Statins lower levels of fatty substances such as low-density lipoprotein, or "bad" cholesterol, and triglycerides. They also raise levels of high-density lipoprotein or "good" cholesterol.
(Editing by Julie Steenhuysen and David Wiessler)
