While obviously not as good as a dedicated medication such as Tamiflu, a large study discovered that people who were taking statin drugs when they caught seasonal flu and had to be hospitalized were twice as likely to survive than those who were not being treated with such medications.
The results were discussed Thursday at an Infectious Diseases Society of America conference in Philadelphia. Since statin drugs have long been known to reduce inflammation along with cholesterol, the theory is that the help it provides with regards to flu is a reduction in inflammation and an overreaction by the immune system, which is the cause of much of the damage produced by flu, whether H1N1 swine flu or seasonal flu.
The new study was sponsored by the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). It is the large study in the United States to look at statins and flu.
The research studied 2,800 people hospitalized with lab-confirmed seasonal flu in 10 states in 2007-2008. Of those, medical records show that 801 received statin drugs in the hospital, most likely as a result of continuing, already existing cholesterol treatment.
Of those taking statin drugs, the death rate from flu was half that of those not taking the drugs. For non-statin drug users, the rate was 3 percent. As the research noted, this is despite the fact that statin drug users are likely to have underlying health conditions as a result of their prior high cholesterol or other conditions.
Statin drugs have been found to have positive effects in many other ways, such as reduced prostate cancer risk. Some healthy people are even jealous over the positive effects of statin drugs; some have even theorized we should give the drugs to everyone, although that's an outlandish statement since the drugs do have side effects.
Posted October 29th, 2009 by Michael Santo
