Link between commonly prescribed statin and memory impairment

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 UK 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.