Statins found to lower blood pressure in US study

By Julie Steenhuysen

CHICAGO, April 14 (Reuters) - Popular cholesterol-lowering drugs known as statins also can lower blood pressure, U.S. researchers said on Monday, helping to explain why statins have been shown to prevent strokes as well as heart attacks.

They said patients who took two different types of statins saw modest but rapid declines in both their top and bottom blood pressure readings.

"It really looks very clearly that there is a consistent but modest improvement," said Dr. Beatrice Golomb of the University of California, San Diego, whose work was published in the Archives of Internal Medicine.

"This may be especially important for explaining the stroke benefits of statins," she said in a telephone interview.

Statins fight heart disease primarily by lowering levels of low-density lipoprotein, the so-called bad cholesterol that can clog arteries and cause heart attacks.

"LDL cholesterol shows really no consistent relationship to stroke and yet statins have lowered stroke risk in many studies," Golomb said.

"Blood pressure, in contrast to LDL cholesterol, is a very powerful contributor to stroke and this may help explain some of the reduced risks of stroke," she said.

Statins are the world's top-selling drugs, pulling in billions of dollars for their makers. In addition to the cardiovascular effects, the drugs have been shown to have some unexpected benefits, such as lowering the risk of death from influenza, pneumonia and the effects of smoking.