Statins are powerful drugs that reduce "bad" cholesterol and thus cut the risk of a heart attack. While these medications offer tremendous benefits to millions, they can carry side effects for some. The most frequently reported consequence is fatigue, and about nine percent of patients report statin-related pain.

People at high risk for dementia who took cholesterol-lowering statins are half as likely to develop dementia as those who do not take statins, a new study shows.

Commonly used cholesterol-fighting drugs called statins may protect against dementia and memory loss, according to a study published in the July 29, 2008, issue of Neurology®, the medical journal of the American Academy of Neurology.

Cholesterol-lowering drugs known as statins have a profound effect on an elite group of cells important to brain health as we age, scientists at the University of Rochester Medical Center have found. The new findings shed light on a long-debated potential role for statins in the area of dementia.

The medications known as statins, typically prescribed to lower blood cholesterol levels, may also modestly reduce blood pressure, according to a report in the April 14 issue of Archives of Internal Medicine, one of the JAMA/Archives journals.

Women and men experience a similar prevalence of adverse drug reactions in the treatment of coronary artery disease; however, women are significantly less likely than their male counterparts to be treated with statins, aspirin, and beta-blockers according to a new study by researchers at Rush University Medical Center.

Patients who stop taking cholesterol-lowering drugs within a year of surviving a stroke had a two-fold increased risk of death, researchers reported in Stroke: Journal of the American Heart Association.

A large community-based study refutes previous findings that statins – a top-selling drug class, worldwide -- might cut one’s risk of developing prostate cancer by reducing production of the male hormones that fuel cancer growth.

Researchers from Boston University School of Medicine (BUSM) have found that the statin, simvastatin, reduces the incidence of Alzheimer’s disease and Parkinson’s disease by almost 50 percent. This is the first study to suggest that statins might reduce the incidence of Parkinson’s disease. These findings, will be published in the July online open access journal BioMed Central (BMC) Medicine.

Researchers have yet to report on the concept that hepatitis C virus (HCV) patients who take statins may experience improvements in alanine transaminase (ALT, liver enzymes) levels. Use of statins for hepatitis C has not occurred in the past as the FDA-approved package insert for every statin lists "active liver disease" as a contraindication for use and hepatitis C would certainly qualify as an active liver disease.