(Press-News.org) Statins, the family of drugs used to lower cholesterol, might also reduce the risk of epileptic seizures in people with cardiovascular disease, according to a new statistical study by a drug safety expert at the University of British Columbia and Vancouver Coastal Health Research Institute. The findings could provide the basis for randomized, controlled clinical trials to test the efficacy of the drugs as anti-epileptic medication.
The study, based on a database of 2,400 Quebec residents aged 65 and older, showed that those taking statins were 35 per cent less likely to be hospitalized with a diagnosis of epilepsy than those not taking the drug. The data was culled from a larger database containing detailed information on 150,000 cardiovascular patients in Quebec.
Published today in the journal Neurology, the study does not prove causation but only reveals an association between use of statins and the incidence of epilepsy. Such "observational" studies are crucial to generating hypotheses about drugs, providing a basis for clinical trials.
Epilepsy, which affects 50 million people worldwide, is a brain disorder in which clusters of brain cells sometimes signal abnormally, causing strange sensations, emotions, and behavior or sometimes convulsions, muscle spasms, and loss of consciousness. It's estimated that 30 per cent of epilepsy patients continue having seizures despite receiving the standard drug therapy.
This is the first large study involving humans to show a correlation between statins, the most prescribed class of cardiovascular medications, and seizures, which may be life-threatening. One statin drug, atorvastatin (sold under the trade name Lipitor), has been shown to decrease seizures and neuron death in rats. Statins also have shown protective effects in other neurological disorders, including multiple sclerosis and spinal cord injury.
"Our data is compelling in that it opens doors for future studies to test this hypothesis in patients with epilepsy," says Dr. Mahyar Etminan, a pharmacoepidemiologist and lead author of the article. Etminan is a scientist and clinical pharmacist at the Centre for Clinical Epidemiology at Vancouver Coastal Health Research Institute and an assistant professor in the Dept. of Medicine at UBC. "Such trials would show whether statins truly have a protective effect, and if that effect is limited to certain types of statins or certain types of epilepsy."
"Our study suggests that statin use reduces the risk of developing epilepsy in persons over the age of 65 with cardiovascular disease," says Dr. Ali Samii, a professor in the Department of Neurology at the University of Washington, and co-author of the article. "The most plausible explanation is that statin use reduces the risk of stroke in this population, and since strokes can increase the risk of epilepsy, statins reduce the risk of epilepsy because of stroke prevention."
But Samii notes that other classes of cardiovascular drugs, such as beta-blockers and ACE inhibitors, also reduce the risk of stroke, and yet they did not show the same effect. Therefore, statins may reduce the risk of epilepsy in this patient population by mechanisms other than just stroke prevention.
###
Co-author Dr. James M. Brophy, of the McGill University Dept. of Medicine, provided the database used for the study. The research was supported by the Vancouver Coastal Health Research Institute.
The UBC Faculty of Medicine provides innovative programs in the health and life sciences, teaching students at the undergraduate, graduate and postgraduate levels, and generates more than $200 million in research funding each year. In 2008/09, out of the total UBC research endeavour, 49 per cent or $233 million, came from academic and clinical teams in the Faculty of Medicine. For more information, visit www.med.ubc.ca.
Vancouver Coastal Health Research Institute (VCHRI) is the research body of Vancouver Coastal Health Authority, which includes B.C.'s largest academic and teaching health sciences centres: VGH, UBC Hospital, and GF Strong Rehabilitation Centre. In academic partnership with the University of British Columbia, VCHRI brings innovation and discovery to patient care, advancing healthier lives in healthy communities across British Columbia, Canada, and beyond. www.vchri.ca.
END
Bees, termites, spiders, and flies entombed in a newly-excavated amber deposit are challenging the assumption that India was an isolated island-continent in the Early Eocene, or 52-50 million years ago. Arthropods found in the Cambay deposit from western India are not unique—as would be expected on an island—but rather have close evolutionary relationships with fossils from other continents. The amber is also the oldest evidence of a tropical broadleaf rainforest in Asia. The discovery is published this week in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
"We know ...
LA JOLLA, CA-Scientists are closer to solving one of the many mysteries of multiple sclerosis and other demyelinating diseases, thanks to a recent study conducted at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies. The research revealed a previously unknown connection between two ion channels, which, when misaligned, can cause the many bizarre symptoms that characterize the condition.
The findings, reported in this week's online edition of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), provide fresh insights into the mechanisms underlying MS and suggest a novel ...
DENVER — A new study from Kaiser Permanente Colorado is one of the first to show that an intensive population management program that matches heart disease patients to personal nurses and clinical pharmacy specialists not only reduces the risk of death but reduces health care costs as well.
The findings are published in the November issue of the journal Pharmacotherapy.
Researchers examined health care expenditures in two populations of patients with heart disease: a group of 628 people enrolled in the Kaiser Permanente Collaborative Cardiac Care Service, a population ...
Fog is a relatively frequent phenomenon in the Po Valley and constitutes a major issue for all road traffic. The new fog warning system covers and benefits the entire Venice Region, combining VTT`s know-how on intelligent transport and evaluation of information services. The system is expected to provide services for regular and professional motorists and transport companies as well as authorities. These types of warning solutions are expected to be in demand on a larger scale in the future as they have positive safety effects and are very profitable socio-economically. ...
They are one of the most highly prized delicacies in the culinary world, but now scientists have discovered that black truffles are locked in a gender war for reproduction. The research, published in New Phytologist as the truffle season begins, represents a breakthrough in the understanding of truffle cultivation and distribution.
The teams, led by Dr Francesco Paolocci and Dr Andrea Rubini from the CNR Plant Genetics Institute in Perugia and by Dr Francis Martin from INRA in Nancy, carried out their research on the reproduction strategy of the highly prized black ...
Sleep disturbances increase the risk of work disability and may slow the return to work process. This is especially true in cases where work disability is due to mental disorders or musculoskeletal diseases. These results come from a recent study conducted by the Finnish Institute of Occupational Health in collaboration with the universities of Turku and London.
The research is being conducted as part of two major research projects on social capital in the workplace (Kunta10) and on well-being in the hospital workplace. The follow-up study is part of the Academy of Finland ...
A child's chances of developing allergies or wheezing is related to how he or she grew at vital stages in the womb, according to scientists from the University of Southampton.
The new research, funded by the Medical Research Council (MRC) and the British Lung Foundation, and undertaken at Southampton General Hospital, reveals that fetuses which develop quickly in early pregnancy but falter later in pregnancy are likely to go on to develop allergies and asthma as children. Scientists believe this is due to changes in the development of their immune system and lungs.
A ...
The field that these researchers are working in is known by its nickname, "anti-spoofing", and basically consists in trying to detect all of the possible attempts at fraud that a biometric system might suffer, especially with regard to an action in which the user presents the biometric proof to the system. "What we are trying to do is detect those attempts so that the system can then act accordingly", explains the head of UC3M's Grupo Universitario de Tecnologías de Identificación (GUTI)(University Identification Technology Group), Raúl Sánchez Reíllo, who is leading this ...
Flamingos apply natural make-up to their feathers to stand out and attract mates, according to a new study by Juan Amat, from the Estación Biológica de Doňana in Seville, Spain, and colleagues. Their research is the first to demonstrate that birds transfer the color pigments (carotenoids) from the secretions of their uropygial gland for cosmetic reasons. The uropygial or preen gland is found in the majority of birds and is situated near the base of the tail. The study is published online in Behavioral Ecology and Sociobiology, a Springer journal.
There is evidence ...
AUGUSTA, Ga. - A daily dose of whole body vibration may help reduce the usual bone density loss that occurs with age, Medical College of Georgia researchers report.
Twelve weeks of daily, 30-minute sessions in 18-month old male mice – which equate to 55- to 65-year-old humans – appear to forestall the expected annual loss that can result in fractures, disability and death. Dr. Karl H. Wenger, biomedical engineer in the MCG Schools of Graduate Studies and Medicine, reported the findings with his colleagues in the journal Bone.
Researchers found vibration improved density ...
