Do statins lower the risk of dementia?

We studied three groups of patients older than 50 years from the United Kingdom General Practice Research Database, totaling 60,000 patients from 368 practices. Patients were grouped as follows: normal cholesterol levels, elevated cholesterol treated with HMG-CoA reductase inhibitors (statins) or other lipid-lowering drugs, and untreated elevated cholesterol. Of these patients, 284 developed dementia and were matched with 1,080 controls. Patients taking statins had a 70% lower risk of dementia than patients without hyperlipidemia and those with hyperlipidemia who were untreated or treated with nonstatin drugs. Statins may prevent dementia; randomized clinical trials are needed to confirm this finding.