Statins reduce pneumonia death rates

According to a new study conducted by British scientists, taking statins, which are used to decrease cholesterol level in blood, can prevent people dying from pneumonia.

The researchers from London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine found that risk of death in the six-month period after diagnosis of pneumonia was substantially lower among those whith were already receiving the cholesterol-lowering preparations compared with those who were not.

Previous studies have already suggested that decrease of cholesterol level may help the immune system of the organism to fight the infection. This study supports these results.

For their study scientists used a database of computerized medical records of doctors’ practices from Great Britain in order to identify the patients who took statins on a regular basis. Then the researches compared data of those who took statins with that of those who did not. All patients with a record of pneumonia were followed by doctors for six months. In the end the scientists found that 20% of non-statin users died due to pneumonia compared with 13% of statin users.

Adopted from: Health Yahoo