BACKGROUND/AIMS The role of statins in preventing cardiovascular outcomes in patients with chronic kidney disease (CKD) is unclear. This paper compares cardiovascular outcomes with pravastatin vs. usual care, stratified by baseline estimated glomerular filtration rate (eGFR). METHODS Post-hoc analyses of a prospective randomized open-label clinical trial; 10,151 participants in the Antihypert...

Rosuvastatin is a new 3-hydroxy-3-methylglutaryl coenzyme A reductase inhibitor. The liver is the target organ for the lipid-regulating effect of rosuvastatin; therefore liver-selective uptake of this drug is a desirable property. The aim of this study was to investigate, and compare with pravastatin and simvastatin, the tissue-specific distribution of rosuvastatin. Bolus intravenous doses (5 m...

Inhibitors of 3-hydroxy-3-methylglutaryl coenzyme A (HMG-CoA) reductase, the key enzyme that regulates cholesterol synthesis, lower serum cholesterol by increasing the activity of low density lipoprotein (LDL) receptors in the liver. In rat liver slices, the dose-response curves for inhibition of [14C]acetate incorporation into cholesterol were similar for the active acid forms of lovastatin, s...

Drug delivery systems including chemical, physical and biological agents that enhance the bioavailability, improve pharmacokinetics and reduce toxicities of the drugs. Carrier erythrocytes are one of the most promising biological drug delivery systems investigated in recent decades. The bioavailability of statin drugs is low due the effects of P-glycoprotein in the gastro-intestinal tract as we...

OBJECTIVE To test the hypothesis that the 3-hydroxy-3-methylglutaryl coenzyme-A reductase inhibitor pravastatin ameliorates endothelium mediated responses of dilated coronary segments: the PREFACE (pravastatin related effects following angioplasty on coronary endothelium) trial. DESIGN A double blind, randomised, placebo controlled, multicentre study. SETTING Four hospitals in the Netherlan...

BACKGROUND The West of Scotland Coronary Prevention Study was a primary prevention trial that demonstrated the effectiveness of pravastatin (40 mg/d) in reducing morbidity and mortality from coronary heart disease (CHD) in moderately hypercholesterolemic men. The present analysis examines the extent to which differences in LDL and other plasma lipids both at baseline and on treatment influenced...

AIMS Small GTPases RhoA and Rac1 play crucial roles in endothelial dysfunction and reactive oxygen species (ROS) generation. We reported evidence that in thrombin-stimulated endothelial cells, rapid geranylgeranylation is an essential process for full activation of unprocessed RhoA, which is blocked by statin. In this study, we examined the effects of intravenous administration of pravastatin o...

AIMS Impaired myocardial vasodilatation during hyperaemic stress with dipyridamole has been documented in hypercholesterolaemics without evidence of ischaemia. This study investigated whether two commonly used hydroxymethylglutaryl coenzyme A reductase inhibitors, simvastatin and pravastatin, are equally effective in restoring myocardial vasodilatation. METHODS AND RESULTS Forty-four hypercho...

AIMS Extracellular ATP and ADP regulate diverse inflammatory, prothrombotic and vasoactive responses in the vasculature. Statins have been shown to modulate their signaling pathways in vitro. We hypothesized that altered intravascular nucleotide turnover modulates vasodilation in patients with type 1 diabetes (T1DM), and this can be partly restored with pravastatin therapy. METHODS In this ra...

The encapsulation of porcine islets is an attractive methodology for the treatment of Type I diabetes. In the current study, the use of pravastatin as a mild anti-inflammatory agent was investigated in pancreatectomized diabetic canines transplanted with porcine islets encapsulated in agarose-agarose macrobeads and given 80 mg/day of pravastatin (n = 3) while control animals did not receive pra...