Statin use and Parkinson's disease in Denmark

Abstract

The objective of this study was to investigate whether statin (3-hydroxy-3-methylglutaryl-coenzyme A reductase inhibitor) use is associated with risk of Parkinson's disease (PD) in Denmark. We identified 1,931 patients with a first time diagnosis of PD reported in hospital or outpatient clinic records between 2001 and 2006. We density matched to these patients 9,651 population controls by birth year and sex relying on the Danish population register. For every participant, we identified pharmacy records of statin and anti-Parkinson drug prescriptions since 1995 and before index date from a prescription medication use database for all Danish residents. Whenever applicable, the index dates for cases and their corresponding controls were advanced to the date of first recorded prescription for anti-Parkinson drugs. In our primary analyses, we excluded all statin prescriptions 2-years before PD diagnosis. Employing logistic regression adjusting for age, sex, diagnosis of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, and Charlson comorbidity, we observed none to slightly inverse associations between PD diagnosis and statin prescription drug use. Inverse associations with statin use were only observed for short-term (<or=1 yrs) statin users (2-year lag OR 0.57; 95% CI 0.36 to 0.89); and suggested at higher intensity statin use (2-year lag OR 0.69; 95% CI 0.45-1.04). No associations were seen among long-term users and no difference by sex, age, or type of statins used (lipophilic/hydrophilic). We found little evidence for a neuroprotective role of statins in PD except for short-term or high intensity users. Yet, further investigations into the contributions of intensity, duration, and lag periods of statin use may still be warranted.