Statin therapies reduce risk of Alzheimer’s disease and dementia with increased protective therapeutic effect with increasing age

Abstract

AbstractBackgroundA previous peer‐reviewed publication (Torrandell‐Haro et al. 2020, Alzheimer’s & Dementia: TRCI) reported that statin therapy was associated with risk reduction of Alzheimer’s disease. Herein we sought to determine the replication validity of statin therapy on the incidence of Alzheimer’s disease and dementia in a larger dataset with a clinical population of 15 million participants.MethodThis retrospective cohort study used the Mariner claims dataset, which includes prescription and records of 15 million patients from private‐payer and Medicare insurance from across the United States. Patient records surveyed for a diagnosis of Alzheimer’s or dementia starting 1 year after statin exposure. 304,662 participants aged 45 years and older, without prior history of neurodegenerative diseases or brain surgery, were included in the study. In this study, patients with and without exposure to statins were categorized by age groups (60‐65, 70‐75, 80‐85) to determine an association between age and Alzheimer’s outcomes.ResultOf the 304,662 participants included in the study, 152,331 patients (mean [SD] age, 61.75 [3.4] years) were exposed to statin therapy, and 152,331 patients (59.76 [2.6] years) were not treated with statins. Statin exposure was associated with a lower incidence of Alzheimer’s (relative risk, 0.51; 95%CI, 0.46‐0.57; P < .001) and dementia (relative risk, 0.61; 95%CI, 0.58‐0.61; P < .001). The incidence of Alzheimer’s and dementia was reduced by all statins with variances in individual risk profiles. Increasing age was associated with a greater risk reduction of Alzheimer’s disease in patients with statin exposure compared to non‐statin controls.ConclusionOutcomes of these analyses validated previous findings that statin therapy is associated with decreased risk of Alzheimer’s and dementia using a larger database than the previously reported. Further, statin exposure was associated with age‐dependent reduction in risk of Alzheimer’s disease diagnosis.This work was supported by the National Institute on Aging (grants P01AG026572 [Perimenopause in Brain Aging and Alzheimer's Disease], the Sex Differences in the Molecular Determinants of Alzheimer’s Disease Risk: Prodromal Endophenotype (grant 5R01AG057931‐02), the Women's Alzheimer's Movement and the Center for Innovation in Brain Science to Dr Brinton.