The treatment that might reduce the risk of Alzheimer's
(statin therapy)
(statin therapy)
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The first prolonged trial on statin treatment in AD—the Alzheimer's Disease Cholesterol-Lowering Treatment (ADCLT) trial—was performed on the premise that elevated cholesterol levels might promote disease progression, but did not directly cause the disease. Individuals participating in the ADCLT trial were administered 80 mg of atorvastatin or placebo per day, for 1 year, without dose escalation. By comparison, patients in the study by Sano et al. were treated with 20 mg per day of simvastatin for 6 weeks and then 40 mg per day for the following 16.5 months. Mean cholesterol levels in patients at baseline were comparable in both studies. Patients who received atorvastatin in the ADCLT trial showed positive benefits on the Alzheimer's Disease Assessment Scale-cognitive subscale (ADAS-cog). This benefit in cognition following atorvastatin treatment achieved statistical significance compared with placebo at 6 months, and patients treated with the statin showed a trend towards improvement at 1 year. By contrast, Sano et al. found no evidence of improvement in ADAS-cog scores: deterioration in ADAS-cog performance was comparable between the placebo population and the simvastatin treatment group over the entire 18-month period of the study. The only other difference that might explain the discrepancies in results between the two trials was in the magnitude of cholesterol reduction in the treatment populations. In the ADCLT trial, atorvastatin induced a 54% decrease in LDL cholesterol and a 40% reduction in total cholesterol, whereas in the study by Sano et al. patients treated with simvastatin showed only 37% and 23% reduction in LDL and total cholesterol, respectively. Continue to read: nature.com
Metabolites from bacteria are playing an important role in regulating our systems
Bacteria that exist in our gut may affect how people respond to statins; medications used to control blood cholesterol levels. To date, doctors have not been able to properly explain why some patients on cholesterol-lowering medications respond well, while others don't. Read more: medicalnewstoday.com