Statin May Reduce Risk of Dementia and Parkinson's Disease

BOSTON, July 19 -- Simvastatin (Zocor) may enrich the brain as well as help sustain the heart, according to researchers here.

The statin reduced the risk of incident dementia by more than 54% and the risk of newly acquired Parkinson's disease by 49% in patients 65 or older, Benjamin Wolozin, M.D., of Boston University, and colleagues, reported online in BMC Medicine

Analysis of data from the 4.5 million men and women included in the Veterans Affairs database found a significant protective effect for simvastatin (P

But as the authors concluded, more studies are needed to determine whether the apparent protective effect "represents a biological action of simvastatin or an unanticipated statistical bias in the database."