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. 2015 Sep 18;10(9):e0137914.
doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0137914. eCollection 2015.

Statins Reduces the Risk of Dementia in Patients with Late-Onset Depression: A Retrospective Cohort Study

Ya-Hsu Yang  1 , Hao-Wei Teng  2 , Yen-Ting Lai  3 , Szu-Yuan Li  4 , Chih-Ching Lin  4 , Albert C Yang  5 , Hsiang-Lin Chan  6 , Yi-Hsuan Hsieh  6 , Chiao-Fan Lin  6 , Fu-Ying Hsu  7 , Chih-Kuang Liu  8 , Wen-Sheng Liu  9
Affiliations

Statins Reduces the Risk of Dementia in Patients with Late-Onset Depression: A Retrospective Cohort Study

Ya-Hsu Yang et al. PLoS One. .

Abstract

Objective: Patients with late-onset depression (LOD) have been reported to run a higher risk of subsequent dementia. The present study was conducted to assess whether statins can reduce the risk of dementia in these patients.

Methods: We used the data from National Health Insurance of Taiwan during 1996-2009. Standardized Incidence Ratios (SIRs) were calculated for LOD and subsequent dementia. The criteria for LOD diagnoses included age ≥65 years, diagnosis of depression after 65 years of age, at least three service claims, and treatment with antidepressants. The time-dependent Cox proportional hazards model was applied for multivariate analyses. Propensity scores with the one-to-one nearest-neighbor matching model were used to select matching patients for validation studies. Kaplan-Meier curve estimate was used to measure the group of patients with dementia living after diagnosis of LOD.

Results: Totally 45,973 patients aged ≥65 years were enrolled. The prevalence of LOD was 12.9% (5,952/45,973). Patients with LOD showed to have a higher incidence of subsequent dementia compared with those without LOD (Odds Ratio: 2.785; 95% CI 2.619-2.958). Among patients with LOD, lipid lowering agent (LLA) users (for at least 3 months) had lower incidence of subsequent dementia than non-users (Hazard Ratio = 0.781, 95% CI 0.685-0.891). Nevertheless, only statins users showed to have reduced risk of dementia (Hazard Ratio = 0.674, 95% CI 0.547-0.832) while other LLAs did not, which was further validated by Kaplan-Meier estimates after we used the propensity scores with the one-to-one nearest-neighbor matching model to control the confounding factors.

Conclusions: Statins may reduce the risk of subsequent dementia in patients with LOD.

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Conflict of interest statement

Competing Interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.

Figures

Fig 1
Fig 1. The effect of statins in reducing the risk of subsequent dementia in patients with late-onset depression.
(A) Flowchart showing the matching process for statins users and non-users in the population studied. Finally, 1,844 pairs of matched patients were selected for analysis using the propensity score method, which minimizes interference by confounding factors. (B) Statins reduced the occurrence of subsequent dementia in patients with LOD (p < 0.001).
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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