Health for life

New research that looked at whether two commonly prescribed statin medicines, used to lower low-density lipoprotein (LDL) or bad cholesterol levels in the blood, can adversely affect cognitive function has found that one of the drugs tested caused memory impairment in rats.

Between six and seven million people in the UK1 take statins daily and the findings follow anecdotal evidence of people reporting that they feel that their newly prescribed statin is affecting their memory. Last year, the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) insisted that all manufacturers list in their side effects that statins might affect cognitive function.

The study, led by scientists at the University of Bristol and published in the journal PLOS ONE, tested pravastatin and atorvostatin (two commonly prescribed statins) in rat learning and memory models. The findings show that while no adverse cognitive effects were observed in rat performance for simple learning and memory tasks for atorvostatin, pravastatin impaired their performance.

Rats were treated daily with pravastatin (brand name - pravachol) or atorvostatin (brand name - Lipitor) for 18 days. The rodents were tested in a simple learning task before, during and after treatment, where they had to learn where to find a food reward. On the last day of treatment and following one week withdrawal, the rats were also tested in a task which measures their ability to recognise a previously encountered object (recognition memory).

The studys findings showed that pravastatin tended to impair learning over the last few days of treatment although this effect was fully reversed once treatment ceased. However, in the novel object discrimination task, pravastatin impaired object recognition memory. While no effects were observed for atorvostatin in either task.

The results suggest that chronic treatment with pravastatin impairs working and recognition memory in rodents. The reversibility of the effects on stopping treatment is similar to what has been observed in patients, but the lack of effect of atorvostatin suggests that some types of statin may be more likely to cause cognitive impairment than others.

Neil Marrion, Professor of Neuroscience at Bristols School of Physiology and Pharmacology and the studys lead author, said: "This finding is novel and likely lects both the anecdotal reports and FDA advice. What is most interesting is that it is not a feature of all statins. However, in order to better understand the relationship between statin treatment and cognitive function, further studies are needed."

Individuals who have a high preference for sweets and a high aversion to bitter flavors may be at an increased risk of developing metabolic syndrome, according to a new study in the Journal of Food Science, published by the Institute of Food Technologists (IFT).

Researchers at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill analyzed how two tasting profiles, sweet likers (SL) and supertasters (ST), interact and affect dietary intake and health, particularly metabolic syndrome. Metabolic syndrome is a name for a group of risk factors that occur together and increase the risk for coronary artery disease, stroke, and type-2 diabetes.

What researchers found is that those with both taste profiles or neither taste profiles were more likely to have an increased risk of metabolic syndrome compared to those who were only an SL or ST. The interaction between SL and ST was also significantly associated with fiber and beverage intake suggesting that tasting patterns may have an effect on both dietary intake and disease risk.