A new study has determined that patients taking anti-cholesterol medicine called statins have a 41 per cent lower risk of in-hospital death due to Covid-19. Researchers stated that patients with good reason to take statins, like history of cardiovascular diseases or high blood pressure, benefit most from statins’ ability to inhibit the virus.
The study was led by researchers from the University of California San Diego School of Medicine, and was published in the peer-reviewed scientific journal PLOS ONE.
Statins are cholesterol-lowering drugs that block liver enzymes responsible for producing cholesterol. The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) estimates that 93. per cent of patients who use a cholesterol-lowering drug use a statin. The ACE2 receptor – target of statins – helps control blood pressure. In 2020, it was discovered that SARS-CoV-2 virus primarily uses the same receptor to enter lung cells.
“When faced with this virus at the beginning of the pandemic, there was a lot of speculation surrounding certain medications that affect the body’s ACE2 receptor, including statins, and whether they may influence Covid-19 risk,” said lead study author Lori Daniels, professor and director of the Cardiovascular Intensive Care Unit at UC San Diego Health.
“At the time, we thought that statins may inhibit SARS-CoV-2 infection through their known anti-inflammatory effects and binding capabilities, which could potentially stop progression of the virus,” she added.
The UC San Diego research team took the data from the American Heart Association’s Covid-19 Cardiovascular Disease Registry and applied their original findings to a much larger group of over 10,000 hospitalised Covid-19 patients across the United States.
The American Heart Association’s Covid-19 Cardiovascular Disease Registry maintains de-identified health data on patients treated for the virus at more than 140 hospitals across the US. As of July 2021, more than 49,000 patient records had been submitted to the platform.
Researchers analysed anonymised medical records of 10,541 patients admitted for Covid-19 over a nine-month period from January through September 2020, at 104 different hospitals.
The study statistically matched outcomes for patients who used statins or an anti-hypertension medication with similar patients who did not.
Each patient was matched to one or more similar patients on the basis of hospital site, the month of admission, age, race, ethnicity, gender, and a list of pre-existing conditions, in order to make the two groups as comparable as possible, stated Karen Messer, study co-author and professor of biostatistics at UC San Diego School of Medicine.
“From this data, we performed more advanced analyses as we attempted to control for coexisting medical conditions, socioeconomic status and hospital factors… In doing so, we confirmed our prior findings that statins are associated with a reduced risk of death from COVID-19 among patients hospitalised for Covid-19,” said Daniels.
Daniels stated patients with good medical reasons to be taking statins, such as a history of cardiovascular disease or high blood pressure, seem to benefit more from taking statins in case of Covid-19 infection. The research team discovered that the use of statins or an anti-hypertension medication was associated with a 32 per cent lower risk of death among Covid-19 inpatients with a history of cardiovascular disease or hypertension.
As per the research, statins and anti-hypertension medications stabilise the underlying diseases for which they are prescribed, increasing the chances of recovering from Covid-19.
The research team clarified that the findings relating statins to Covid-19 treatment do come with pitfalls, same as any other research, there is strong evidence to support their use.
“As with any observational study, we cannot say for certain that the associations we describe between statin use and reduced severity of COVID-19 infection are definitely due to the statins themselves; however, we can now say with very strong evidence that they may play a role in substantially lowering a patient’s risk of death from COVID-19,” said Daniels.
“We hope that our research findings are an incentive for patients to continue with their medication,” she further added.
The initial study included 170 anonymised medical records from patients receiving care at UC San Diego Health. It was seen that using statins prior to hospitalisation for Covid-19 led to a more than 50 per cent reduction in risk of developing severe infection.
Co-authors of the study include Junting Ren, Quan M. Bui, Jing Zhang, Xinlian Zhang, Christopher A. Longhurst, all at UC San Diego; Kris Kumar, Knight Cardiovascular Institute; Mariem A. Sawan, Emory University School of Medicine; and Howard Eisen, Pennsylvania State Health.
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