The raison d'etre of this website is to provide you with hard scientific information which may help you make informed decisions in your quest for health (so far I have blogged concise summaries of over 1,500 scientific studies and have had three books published).

My research is mainly focused on the effects of cholesterol, saturated fat and statin drugs on health. If you know anyone who is worried about their cholesterol levels and heart disease, or has been told to take statin drugs you could send them a link to this website, and to my statin or cholesterol or heart disease books.

David Evans

Independent Health Researcher

Wednesday 10 August 2011

Statins may be implicated in neurodegenerative diseases

This post includes a summary of a paper published in Neurobiology of Aging 2010 Sep;31(9):1543-53

Study title and authors:
Mevastatin accelerates loss of synaptic proteins and neurite degeneration in aging cortical neurons in a heme-independent manner.
Kannan M, Steinert JR, Forsythe ID, Smith AG, Chernova T.
Statin Drugs Side Effects and the Misguided War on Cholesterol
Books:
MRC Toxicology Unit, University of Leicester, Leicester, United Kingdom.

This paper can be accessed at: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18951667

Kannan investigated the effectes of statins on cultured neurons.

The study found:
(a) Statins impaired synaptic proteins.
(b) Statins reduced N-methyl-d-aspartate receptor currents (N-methyl-d-aspartate receptor currents help in memory funcion).
(c) Statins accelerated neurodegeneration associated with aging.

To conclude: Statins exert a neurotoxic effect in cultured neurons and may be implicated in neurodegenerative diseases such as Parkinson’s, Alzheimer’s, Amyothrophic Lateral Sclerosis, Multiple Sclerosis and Huntington’s.

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