Statins Don’t Prevent Blood Clots

Statins, the drug used to lower cholesterol level in the blood by reducing the production of cholesterol by liver may not prevent blood clots in adults.

According to a large analysis done by the international researchers statins do not prevent venous thrombo embolism (blood clots) in adults. These details were published in this week's PLOS Medicine.

An additional analysis was done in 2009 that focused on the data done from the randomized controlled trial termed the JUPITER trial. They noticed that the drug reduced the risk of blood clots in adults to a great extent. But they did not consider the study as it was being conducted on a small number of patients.

In order to gain more insight on the benefits of the drug, a group of international researchers led by Kazem Rahimi from the George Centre for Healthcare Innovation at the University of Oxford in the UK, took into consideration the results of 29 suitable published and unpublished randomized controlled trails that involved over 10,00,00 participants and more than 1000 events.

On analyzing the data, only two studies presented venous thrombotic events. The authors recorded these events as adverse events.

It was observed that nearly 0.9 percent of the people had blood clots who were taking statins compared to 1 percent who were not taking statins, indicating statins don't have major effects. Also there was no effect at all in people taking high doses and low doses of statins.

The authors conclude: "this study provides a more detailed assessment of the potential effects of statins (or higher dose statins) on venous thromboembolic events than has previously been possible. We were unable to confirm the large proportional reduction in risk suggested by some previous studies."

The authors add: "However, a more modest but perhaps clinically worthwhile reduction in venous thromboembolic events in some or all types of patient cannot be ruled out."