BACKGROUND Statin drugs (3-hydroxy-3-methylglutaryl coenzyme A reductase inhibitors) reduce the level of cholesterol by inhibiting the synthesis of mevalonate, an intermediary in the cholesterol biosynthetic pathway. Use of statin drugs has been associated with a variety of skeletal muscle-related complaints. Coenzyme Q10 (CoQ10), a component of the mitochondrial respiratory chain, is also synt...

BACKGROUND Patients with Type 2 diabetes (T2DM) are prone to develop dementia. Results from a recent study indicated that statin users had lower chance of developing incident dementia. However there is little information on the potential benefits of statin use on dementia in patients with T2DM cohort. METHOD A population-based retrospective study using a nationwide cohort of National Health I...

OBJECTIVES The aim of this study was to evaluate the impact of reductions in statin and clopidogrel copayments on cardiovascular resource utilization, major coronary events, and insurer spending. BACKGROUND Copayments are widely used to contain health spending but cause patients to reduce their use of essential cardiovascular medications. Reducing copayments for post-myocardial infarction sec...

BACKGROUND Statin drugs are one of the most commonly prescribed pharmaceuticals by physicians. By blocking the rate-limiting step in the cholesterol biosynthesis pathway, statins inhibit cholesterol synthesis, which benefits patient health. However, since many other important cellular processes are regulated within this pathway, they may also be influenced by statin therapy. These pleiotropic e...

A molecular orbital computational study of the statins and a comprehensive review of the literature have found that the lactone forms of statins play a major role in the transport of statins across the cell membrane, and in the metabolism and clearance from the body. The neutral lactone and acid statin species are preferentially transported across the cell membrane and consequentially preferent...

Special AT-rich sequence binding protein 1 (SATB1) regulates the expression of more than 1,000 genes in tumor cells. SATB1 expression has been implicated in metastasis, and its silencing results in reduced cancer progression and the reversion of metastatic cells to normal appearance. Therefore, any compound causing down-regulation of SATB1 expression or activity may be exploited for its therape...

We read the case of combined salicylate and simvastatin induced pancreatitis by Antonopoulos et al. with great interest [1]. While the authors correctly identified the possible role of simvastatin in causing pancreatitis the patient was re-started on another statin rosuvastatin. The authors failed to take into account the fact that pancreatitis might be a class effect of statins. Similar to oth...

Mixed dyslipidemia is a common lipid disorder characterized by the presence of an atherogenic lipoprotein phenotype due to abnormalities in various atherogenic and anti-atherogenic lipoproteins. Despite the link between the decrease of LDL-cholesterol by statin treatment and the prevention of cardiovascular disease, a high residual risk is observed in statin trials. This residual risk is partly...

BACKGROUND Statins are commonly used cholesterol-lowering drugs that have proapoptotic and antimetastatic activities that could affect cancer risk or progression. Results from previous epidemiologic studies of the association between statin use and cancer have been inconsistent. We investigated the association of statin use with total and advanced prostate cancer, the latter being the most impo...

BACKGROUND Cost sharing is widely used to encourage therapeutic substitution. This study aimed to examine the impact of increases in patient cost-sharing differentials for brand name and generic drugs on statin utilization on entry into the Medicare Part D coverage gap. METHOD AND RESULTS Using 5% Medicare Chronic Condition Warehouse files from 2006, this quasi-experimental study examined pat...