Do You Cherish you Memory? Read this.

Your Brain on Statins
By James LaValle, R.Ph, ND, CCN

I was recently made aware of huge news on statin drugs from the labs at Iowa State University, where a researcher has confirmed something I have long suspected regarding cholesterol-lowering drugs -- that they could seriously harm brain health.

The concern comes from simply knowing that brain cells, like liver cells, also manufacture cholesterol. Brain cells need cholesterol for a variety of functions. For instance, cholesterol is a primary component of the protective nerve coating called myelin. If your brain cells didn't need cholesterol, they wouldn't make it.

In the past it was assumed that statins primarily affect the production of cholesterol in the liver. However, as a pharmacist I have always thought it was naïve to think that a drug (statins) that circulates throughout the whole body would not affect other cholesterol-producing cells at all. My fears have now been proven correct.

Yeon-Kyun Shin, a biophysics professor in the Department of Biochemistry, Biophysics and Molecular Biology at Iowa State, says his research shows that statins do indeed slow the production of cholesterol in the brain which then interferes with efficient brain function.1 His study will soon be published in the Journal of the National Academy of Sciences.

Shin found that too little cholesterol in brain cells significantly affected a protein that is needed for the release of neurotransmitters. Cholesterol is needed to change the shape of this critical protein, and in his words, "to stimulate thinking and memory."

I cannot overstate how important this information is, and how big a ripple this news will cause as it is more widely reported. At least, I hope it will be widely reported.

If you deprive the brain of cholesterol, you "directly affect the machinery that triggers the release of neurotransmitters," said Shin. "Neurotransmitters affect the brain's data-processing and memory functions. In other words -- how smart you are and how well you remember things."

As you probably already know, statins lower LDL, and while it is often reported that they can also help raise HDL somewhat, I frequently see people who cannot raise their HDL levels while they are on statin drugs, especially when they are on higher dosages. And other studies have shown that low HDL cholesterol is linked with memory loss.2

Ever since statin drugs entered the marketplace, some users have experienced severe memory problems from them. While it's true that the most pronounced of these cases has involved a very small percentage of people, some of us have been watching closely to see how wider usage of statins will end up affecting the cognitive function of people using them.

Dr. Shin's research conclusively confirms our suspicion that statins can be harmful to cognitive functioning. "Our study shows there is a direct link between cholesterol and the neurotransmitter release," he said definitively.

We have to be really careful in taking statins, especially with newer guidelines advising us that LDL cholesterol should be 100 mg/dL or lower. For people at high risk for heart disease, 70 mg/dL is the suggested level.3 But the bad news for our brain is that very often to reach these more aggressive goals, higher dosages of statins must be used.

Since statin drugs do have some anti-inflammatory actions, the trend in medicine has been to get more and more people on statins, but this could have dire consequences when it comes to long-term cognitive health. One group I am particularly concerned about is people with diabetes.

A person with diabetes is in the high-risk category for heart disease, therefore s(he) will be targeted for more aggressive cholesterol lowering. This group is already at high risk for cognitive decline due to blood sugar elevation. (I explained this connection in more detail in the February 10, 2009 issue of Total Health Breakthroughs.) To add further insult to a diabetic's cognitive function from statins could be very risky.

A study out of UCLA recently found that many people are having heart attacks even though their cholesterol is at or below the 100 mg/dL target. There is no doubt in my mind that this study will be used as fodder to encourage increased use of statins. This will be despite the fact that 21% of the people in the study were using statins, and still had heart attacks.4

The bottom line is this: In addition to their CoQ10 lowering effects, we can add this newest discovery to our growing list of concerns about statin drugs. Kudos to Dr. Shin for this much-needed research and thanks to Ross Pelton, my friend and the co-author of my drug-induced nutrient depletion books for the shout out on this very important discovery.

References

Iowa State University press release, Feb. 23 2008; http://www.public.iastate.edu/~nscentral/news/2009/feb/shin.shtml.
Singh-Manoux et al. Arteriosclerosis, Thrombosis, and Vascular Biology.
2008;28:1556; http://atvb.ahajournals.org/cgi/content/abstract/28/8/1556?maxtoshow=
&HITS=10&hits=10&RESULTFORMAT=&fulltext=HDL+memory&searchid=
1&FIRSTINDEX=0&resourcetype=HWCITv.
http://docnews.diabetesjournals.org/cgi/content/full/1/2/1.
http://seniorjournal.com/NEWS/Health/2009/20091012-MeetingCholesterol.

[Ed. Note: James LaValle is the founding Director of the LaValle Metabolic Institute, one of the largest integrative medicine practices in the country. Dr. LaValle is the author of The Metabolic Code Diet: Unleashing the Power of Your Metabolism for Lasting Weight Loss and Vitality and the Executive Editor of THB's The Healing