Statin use may help healthy older patients avoid physical disability and cardiovascular disease, according to new data published in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology. However, it does not appear to play a role in limiting the likelihood of death or dementia.
The authors explored findings from the ASPREE (Aspirin in Reducing Events in the Elderly) trial, focusing on more than 18,000 patients 70 years old or older. While the median patient age was 74.2 years old, the median follow-up period was 4.7 years.
More than 5,000 study participants took statins—the rest did not. While the ASPREE trial focused aspirin use, outcomes of this study were “adjudicated by expert committees blinded to aspirin or placebo assignment.”
The study’s primary outcome was disability-free survival, which combined all-cause mortality, dementia and “persistent physical disability.” Additional outcomes included major adverse cardiovascular events, fatal cardiovascular disease, myocardial infarction (MI) and stroke.
Overall, baseline statin use was associated with a much lower risk of physician disability, major adverse cardiovascular events, fatal cardiovascular disease, MI and stroke. Statin use was not associated with disability-free survival, however, or the risk of all-cause mortality or dementia.
“To our knowledge, this is the first completed study to evaluate the association of statin use with disability-free survival, a robust measure of healthy, productive, and independent life in older adults and an overarching goal of geriatric health care,” wrote lead author Zhen Zhou, MD, University of Tasmania, and colleagues. “Comparing our study results with findings from the main ASPREE trial, which showed minimal cardiovascular benefits but high bleeding risk from aspirin, primary prevention with statins seems to be a more promising strategy for healthy aging. Because statins may have varying effects on different outcomes in healthy older adults, patients’ treatment goals and the relative importance they assign to these outcomes should be adequately considered before prescribing statins.”
The full study is available here.
Michael has more than 16 years of experience as a professional writer and editor. He has written at length about cardiology, radiology, artificial intelligence and other key healthcare topics.