MS doctors and patients push for repurposing of Simvastatin

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MS doctors and patients push for repurposing of Simvastatin

Post by MSUK »

MS doctors and patients push for repurposing of Simvastatin for treating secondary progressive MS

Sir - A number of repurposed medicines have shown strong preliminary evidence that they could be effective in the treatment of multiple sclerosis (MS), but Britain lacks a system by which old drugs can be relicensed for new purposes.......Read more - http://www.ms-uk.org/MSnews
MS-UK - http://www.ms-uk.org/
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lyndacarol
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Re: MS doctors and patients push for repurposing of Simvasta

Post by lyndacarol »

Simvastatin and atorvastatin are in the same family of drugs. Anyone using a beta interferon and considering a statin might be interested in reading the following report:

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/1852 ... dinalpos=6

Combining beta interferon and atorvastatin may increase disease activity in multiple sclerosis
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Re: MS doctors and patients push for repurposing of Simvasta

Post by jackD »

lyndacarol wrote:Simvastatin and atorvastatin are in the same family of drugs. Anyone using a beta interferon and considering a statin might be interested in reading the following report:

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/1852 ... dinalpos=6

Combining beta interferon in atorvastatin may increase disease activity in multiple sclerosis
Hate to say this but you are probably wrong in lumping Lipitor(atorvastatin) and Zocor(simvastatin) together. (see below)

I MUST state AGAIN AGAIN AGAIN that ZOCOR(simvastatin) seems to be VERY superior to the other statins in protecting neurons.

jackD

p.s/. 80 mg of Lipitor(atorvastatin) is deadly and only 80 mg of Zocor(simvastatin) is worse!!!

p.p.s. ONLY Zocor(simvastatin) seems to get through the Blood Brain Barrier. Of course there is a possiblility that the MMP-9s may have made holes in BBB big enough in some MS folks for the other Statins to enter the brain.

http://home.ix.netcom.com/~jdalton/Yongrev.pdf
J Alzheimers Dis. 2011;23(2):307-18.

Statins as neuroprotectants: a comparative in vitro study of lipophilicity, blood-brain-barrier penetration, lowering of brain cholesterol, and decrease of neuron cell death.Sierra S, Ramos MC, Molina P, Esteo C, Vázquez JA, Burgos JS.

SourceBioPharma Division, Neuron BPh, Parque Tecnológico de Ciencias de la Salud, Edificio BIC, Armilla, Granada, Spain.

Abstract
There is growing evidence to support the hypothesis that statins may act as neuroprotectants in several neuropathological conditions, including Alzheimer's disease. The mechanisms for neuroprotection are only partially understood, however, and pleiotropic phenomena could be involved.

We have made a comparative study of 9 statins (lovastatin, mevastatin, pravastatin, simvastatin, cerivastatin, atorvastatin, fluvastatin, pitavastatin, and rosuvastatin), analyzing several parameters that could be related to neuroprotection, such as chemical structure, lipophilicity, potential blood-brain-barrier penetration (BBB), 3-hydroxy-3-methylglutaryl co-enzyme A reductase inhibition, cholesterol modulation in neurons, glia, and human hepatocyte cell lines, and protection against neurodegeneration caused by tau hyperphosphorylation induced by okadaic acid.

Our results indicate that monacolin J derivatives (natural and semi-synthetic statins) are the best candidates for the prevention of neurodegenerative conditions due to their higher potential BBB penetration capacity, cholesterol lowering effect on neurons with a satisfactory safety profile, and in vitro protection against cell death caused by okadaic acid in culture.

Among the nine statins studied, simvastatin presented the best characteristics for preventing neurodegenerative conditions.

PMID:21098985
.
.
BMC Med. 2007 Jul 19;5:20.
Simvastatin is associated with a reduced incidence of dementia and Parkinson's disease.

Wolozin B, Wang SW, Li NC, Lee A, Lee TA, Kazis LE.
SourceBoston University School of Medicine, Boston, MA, USA. bwolozin@bu.edu

Abstract
BACKGROUND: Statins are a class of medications that reduce cholesterol by inhibiting 3-hydroxy-3-methylglutaryl-coenzyme A reductase. Whether statins can benefit patients with dementia remains unclear because of conflicting results. We hypothesized that some of the confusion in the literature might arise from differences in efficacy of different statins. We used a large database to compare the action of several different statins to investigate whether some statins might be differentially associated with a reduction in the incidence of dementia and Parkinson's disease.

METHODS:

We analyzed data from the decision support system of the US Veterans Affairs database, which contains diagnostic, medication and demographic information on 4.5 million subjects.

The association of lovastatin, simvastatin and atorvastatin with dementia was examined with Cox proportional hazard models for subjects taking statins compared with subjects taking cardiovascular medications other than statins, after adjusting for covariates associated with dementia or Parkinson's disease.

RESULTS: We observed that simvastatin is associated with a significant reduction in the incidence of dementia in subjects > or =65 years, using any of three models. The first model incorporated adjustment for age, the second model included adjusted for three known risk factors for dementia, hypertension, cardiovascular disease or diabetes, and the third model incorporated adjustment for the Charlson index, which is an index that provides a broad assessment of chronic disease. Data were obtained for over 700,000 subjects taking simvastatin and over 50,000 subjects taking atorvastatin who were aged >64 years. Using model 3, the hazard ratio for incident dementia for simvastatin and atorvastatin are 0.46 (CI 0.44-0.48, p < 0.0001) and 0.91 (CI 0.80-1.02, p = 0.11), respectively. Lovastatin was not associated with a reduction in the incidence of dementia. Simvastatin also exhibited a reduced hazard ratio for newly acquired Parkinson's disease (HR 0.51, CI 0.4-0.55, p < 0.0001).

CONCLUSION: Simvastatin is associated with a strong reduction in the incidence of dementia and Parkinson's disease, whereas atorvastatin is associated with a modest reduction in incident dementia and Parkinson's disease, which shows only a trend towards significance.

PMID:17640385[PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE]
p.s The reason there were so many simvastatin(Zocor) subjects is that it was generic and the atorvastatin (Lipitor) was not.

THE numbers in simple terms..

Researchers say statin may decrease dementia, Parkinson's risk. "Simvastatin
(Zocor) may enrich the brain as well as help sustain the heart," according to research
reported online in BMC Medicine. "The statin reduced the risk of incident dementia by
more than 54 percent and the risk of newly acquired Parkinson's disease by 49 percent
in
patients 65 or older, Benjamin Wolozin, M.D., of Boston University, and colleagues
reported." An "analysis of data from the 4.5 million men and women included in the
Veterans Affairs database found a significant protective effect for simvastatin, but not
for lovastatin (Mevacor)." The researchers also found "a non-significant reduction in risk
of incident dementia among patients taking atorvastatin (Lipitor)."
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Re: MS doctors and patients push for repurposing of Simvasta

Post by centenarian100 »

Interesting post Jack

I don't think the statins in general should give us too much hope. They have really only demonstrated MRI benefits-not clear clinical benefits

Here is the MS-STAT trial published in lancet (simvastatin in SPMS): http://www.thelancet.com/journals/lance ... 4/abstract

...not that taking zocor is a big deal.

-C
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