AIM Low-density lipoprotein cholesterol (LDL-C), the ratio of LDL-C to high-density lipoprotein cholesterol (HDL-C; LDL-C/HDL-C), and non-HDL-C were evaluated to determine their ability to predict cardiovascular disease (CVD) risk with pravastatin treatment. METHODS We conducted a large-scale randomized primary prevention trial in Japan (MEGA Study), in which we randomly allocated 7832 mild h...

Statins are efficient cholesterol-lowering medicines utilized worldwide. However, 10% of patients suffer from adverse effects specially related to skeletal muscle function. Pro- or anti-oxidant effects of statins have been reported. Here we hypothesized that statins induce muscle mitochondrial oxidative stress leading to mitochondrial permeability transition (MPT) which may explain statin muscl...

[HMG–CoA] reductase inhibitors) are widely used in the treatment of lipid disorders, especially hypercholesterolemia. Clinical trials have shown that statins are beneficial in both primary and secondary prevention of coronary and cerebrovascular disease events. Statins reduce cholesterol levels by inhibiting HMG–CoA reductase, the enzyme responsible for converting HMG–CoA to mevalonate (a chole...

In manuscript named "Statin use and risk of diabetes mellitus" by Chogtu et al, authors defined that pravastatin 40 mg/dL reduced the risk of diabetes by 30% in West of Scotland Coronary Prevention study. In fact, pravastatin 40 mg/dL reduced coronary heart disease risk approximately 30% in mentioned study.

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES In autosomal dominant polycystic kidney disease (ADPKD), progressive kidney cyst formation commonly leads to ESRD. Because important manifestations of ADPKD may be evident in childhood, early intervention may have the largest effect on long-term outcome. Statins are known to slow progressive nephropathy in animal models of ADPKD. This randomized double-blind placebo-co...

3-hydroxy-3-methyl glutaryl coenzyme A reductase inhibitors have been reported to increase circulating bone marrow progenitor cells and variably improve global function in heart failure. The potential role of improved perfusion versus direct effects of statins on cardiac myocytes has not been established. We chronically instrumented swine with a left anterior descending artery (LAD) stenosis to...

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES Disease-specific treatment options for autosomal dominant polycystic kidney disease are limited. Clinical intervention early in life is likely to have the greatest effect. In a 3-year randomized double-blind placebo-controlled phase 3 clinical trial, the authors recently showed that pravastatin decreased height-corrected total kidney volume (HtTKV) progression of struc...

BACKGROUND Coronary artery disease and ischemic heart disease are leading causes of heart failure and death. Reduced blood flow to heart tissue leads to decreased heart function and symptoms of heart failure. Therapies to improve heart function in chronic coronary artery disease are important to identify. HMG-CoA reductase inhibitors (statins) are an important therapy for prevention of coronary...

Further to our experiment which suggested that lovastatin treatment leads to a larger decrease of ubiquinone levels in rat tissues than pravastatin, we undertook to confirm this finding in the hypercholesterolemic hamster, a model that mimics the cholesterol regulatory mechanisms in humans. In view of the proposed antioxidant role of ubiquinone, we also tested the hypothesis that ubiquinone lev...

INTRODUCTION The purpose of this study was to evaluate the effects of L-4F, an apolipoprotein A-1 mimetic peptide, alone or with pravastatin, in apoE-/-Fas-/-C57BL/6 mice that spontaneously develop immunoglobulin G (IgG) autoantibodies, glomerulonephritis, osteopenia, and atherosclerotic lesions on a normal chow diet. METHODS Female mice, starting at eight to nine weeks of age, were treated f...