Statins alone linked to fitness decline in a cohort’s older women
In this cohort of older adults with abnormal blood fats, fitness fell 4% from baseline over 24 months with statins alone in women, but not men.
Our read
Interventions- Studied:
- Cohort study of 981 older adults with dyslipidemia, 24 months
- What changed:
- Cardiorespiratory fitness fell 4% in older women receiving statin therapy alone
- The catch:
- Independent effects of aging could not be excluded without an untreated control group
- In the record:
- The 596th paper on statins with results in people; 2,001 on record in all.
Editor of record: Boris Djordjevic · AgingResearch.News
Among 981 inactive, physically independent, community-dwelling adults aged 60 or older with dyslipidemia—abnormal blood fat levels—a nonrandomized cohort study tracked heart-and-lung fitness over 24 months. Participants took cholesterol-lowering statins daily, undertook supervised exercise, or did both. Statin users had taken the drugs for at least one year before enrollment. Exercise sessions lasted 60 minutes, three times weekly, combining aerobic, strength, balance and flexibility work.
Fitness was assessed through distance walked in six minutes. With statins alone, fitness fell 4% in women but did not change significantly in men. With exercise alone, fitness rose 27% in women and 21% in men. With both, it rose 27% in women and 1% in men. These were changes from each group’s starting level. Arm and leg strength declined in the statin-only group in both sexes. No serious adverse events occurred during follow-up.
Why it matters
For older adults managing abnormal blood fats, the findings raise the question of how to preserve fitness alongside cholesterol control. The authors suggest exercise may reverse statin-associated fitness declines.
Caveats
The groups were not randomized and differed in age and health, which may have influenced fitness changes; walking distance was an indirect fitness measure. Participants with incomplete testing, exercise attendance of 80% or less, or severe or uncontrolled heart conditions were excluded, limiting how widely the results apply.
From the paper
- Follow-up
Men in the ST group did not show any significant change in CRF over the 24-month follow-up.
- Limitation
This study is not without limitations, including: (i) the non-randomized design; (ii) the lack of a control group without exercise or statin therapy to assess the isolated effects of aging; (iii) unequal sample sizes across sex and treatment groups …
Quoted word for word from the full text on PubMed Central.
Comments
Be the first to comment.