Statins Might Be Helpful With Flu, and Other Serious Infections
This weekend at the Infectious Diseases Society of America in Philadelphia, researchers from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reported that statins (drugs prescribed for reducing cholesterol levels) may be associated with a reduced risk of dying from influenza.
The study was conducted by reviewing data from the CDC's Emerging Infections Program. Among 2800 patients from 10 states admitted to the hospital with confirmed cases of severe influenza in 2007-2008, those who were taking statins had a mortality rate that was half that of patients not taking statins.
This result is consistent with earlier reports suggesting that statins might be beneficial in influenza. The existence of those earlier reports is what stimulated the CDC to do their study in the first place.
Read more here about what we know (and don't know) about the ability of statins to prevent and treat the flu, and other infections.
This meta analysis could just showing that people from higher socioeconomic classes, the ones most likely to be taking statins, are generally in overall better health than those from the lower echelon. I know statins have benefits for a limited patient population, but it just seems they are being pushed hard for everything. Let’s wait and see what the double blind, placebo controlled, random trials show.