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Cholesterol Drug for Alzheimer's?

Posted on: Thursday, 1 December 2005, 18:00 CST

By Nicholas Bakalar

Anew study suggests that cholesterol-lowering drugs like statins and fibrates may slow the course of Alzheimer's disease. The study followed the progression of 342 patients for three years. Of them, 234 had high cholesterol, and 129 of those were given medicine to lower their cholesterol. The patients were scored on a test of mental function at the beginning and end of the study. Those treated with anti-cholesterol drugs were significantly less likely to show declines in cognitive abilities than those left untreated. The study was published in the December issue of the Journal of Neurology, Neurosurgery and Psychiatry. An editorial accompanying the paper points out that previous evidence that lowering cholesterol may help prevent Alzheimer's disease says nothing about whether it slows its progress once it has begun, and that this paper presents a well- designed study showing that treatment can also delay dementia once the disease takes hold. Still, the study has weaknesses: it does not sort out the cholesterol-lowering effects of these drugs from any other effects they may have, and it provides no suggestion about possible mechanisms of the effect. * WITH DECAF, LOSE THE JITTERS, BUT AT A COST? Drinking decaffeinated coffee can raise the level of LDL, the bad cholesterol associated with cardiovascular disease risk, new research suggests. The effect is significant, according to Dr. H. Robert Superkoof the Fuqua Heart Center in Atlanta, who led the study.

"If an individual has elevated LDL and wants to lower it without drugs," Superkoof said, "a combined approach of diet, exercise, weight loss and cessation of decaffeinated coffee if they drink three to six cups a day could reduce the LDL 30 percent and help avoid lifelong drug therapy." The study, financed by the National Institutes of Health and presented Nov. 16 at a meeting of the American Heart Association, included 187 volunteers assigned at random to three groups. Fifty-nine people drank no coffee, 62 drank three to six cups of decaffeinated coffee per day, and 66 drank three to six cups of caffeinated coffee. The coffee was prepared according to specific brewing instructions, and all subjects drank their coffee black. After three months, the researchers found no statistically significant differences among the three groups in most factors that influence the risk of heart disease body mass index, blood pressure, heart rate, total cholesterol, triglycerides, HDL (the good cholesterol), insulin levels and glucose levels. But among the decaffeinated drinkers, there was a significant increase in blood levels of LDL and an increase in ApoB, a protein that may be an even better indicator of heart risk than LDL alone. The researchers suspect that the effect is caused not by the absence of caffeine but by other qualities of the more robust varieties of beans used to produce decaffeinated coffee. *

BREAST-FEEDING MAY HELP KEEP DIABETES AT BAY Extended breast- feeding appears to lower the risk of Type 2 diabetes for the mother, The Journal of the American Medical Association reported last week. For each year that a woman breast-feeds, she reduces her risk of developing diabetes by 15 percent, the study determined. "I think our findings are just one more reason to breast-feed, and to breast- feed for as long as a mother can," said Karin Michels, associate professor of epidemiology at Harvard and the senior author on the study. The researchers studied two groups of more than 100,000 women each the participants in the Nurses' Health Study, which began in 1976, and those in the Nurses' Health Study II, beginning in 1989. All the women completed detailed health questionnaires every two years, and lactation history was assessed in 1993, 1997 and 2003. In both groups, the duration of lactation was inversely associated with the risk of Type 2 diabetes in young and middle-aged women. Even after controlling for other diabetes risk factors body mass index, amount of exercise, diet and smoking the correlation persisted. As the women got older, however, the correlation weakened. The beneficial effect, the scientists concluded, begins to build after six months of lactation, and the artificial suppression of lactation increases the risk of diabetes.

The exact physiological mechanisms involved are not well understood, but it is clear that lactation improves glucose metabolism, which malfunctions in diabetes.

Source: International Herald Tribune

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