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. 2018;65(4):1345-1352.
doi: 10.3233/JAD-180446.

Statins and Brain Health: Alzheimer's Disease and Cerebrovascular Disease Biomarkers in Older Adults

Vijay K Ramanan  1 , Scott A Przybelski  2 , Jonathan Graff-Radford  1 , Anna M Castillo  2 , Val J Lowe  3 , Michelle M Mielke  1   2 , Rosebud O Roberts  1   2 , Robert I Reid  4 , David S Knopman  1 , Clifford R Jack  3 , Ronald C Petersen  1   2 , Prashanthi Vemuri  3
Affiliations

Statins and Brain Health: Alzheimer's Disease and Cerebrovascular Disease Biomarkers in Older Adults

Vijay K Ramanan et al. J Alzheimers Dis. 2018.

Abstract

Background: Statins have been proposed to reduce the risk of Alzheimer's disease (AD).

Objective: Assess whether long-term statin use was associated with neuroimaging biomarkers of aging and dementia.

Methods: Methods: We analyzed neuroimaging biomarkers in 1,160 individuals aged 65+ from the Mayo Clinic Study of Aging, a population-based prospective longitudinal study of cognitive aging.

Results: Statin-treated (5+ years of therapy) individuals had greater burden of mid-and late-life cardiovascular disease (p < 0.001) than statin-untreated (≤3 months) individuals. Lower fractional anisotropy in the genu of the corpus callosum, an early marker of cerebrovascular disease, was associated with long-term statin exposure (p < 0.035). No significant associations were identified between long-term statin exposure and cerebral amyloid or tau burden, AD pattern neurodegeneration, or white matter hyperintensity burden.

Conclusions: Long-term statin therapy was not associated with differences in AD biomarkers. Individuals with long-term statin exposure had worse white matter integrity in the genu of the corpus callosum, consistent with the coexistence of higher cerebrovascular risk factor burden in this group.

Keywords: Alzheimer’s disease; amyloid; biomarkers; cerebrovascular disease; magnetic resonance imaging; neurodegeneration; positron emission tomography; statins; tau; white matter.

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Conflict of interest statement

Conflict of Interest Disclosures

Dr. Graff-Radford receives research support from the NIA. Dr. Lowe consults for Bayer Schering Pharma, Piramal Life Sciences, and Merck Research, and receives research support from GE Healthcare, Siemens Molecular Imaging, AVID Radiopharmaceuticals, and the NIH. Dr. Mielke served as a consultant to Eli Lilly and Lysosomal Therapeutics, Inc., and receives research support from the NIH (R01 AG49704, P50 AG44170, U01 AG06786, RF1 AG55151), Department of Defense (W81XWH-15–1), and unrestricted research grants from Biogen, Roche, and Lundbeck. Dr. Roberts receives research support from the NIH, Roche, and Biogen. Dr. Knopman serves on a Data Safety Monitoring Board for the DIAN study, is an investigator in clinical trials sponsored by Biogen, Lilly Pharmaceuticals and the University of Southern California, and receives research support from the NIH. Dr. Jack reports grants from the NIH (R01 AG011378, U01 HL096917, U01 AG024904, RO1 AG041851, R01 AG037551, R01 AG043392, U01 AG006786), provides consulting services for Eli Lilly Co., and is funded by the Alexander Family Alzheimer’s Disease professorship of the Mayo Foundation. Dr. Petersen serves as a consultant for Hoffman-La Roche, Inc., Merck, Inc., Genentech, Inc., and Biogen, Inc. Dr. Vemuri receives research support from the NIH. The other authors have no conflict of interest disclosures to report.

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