Researchers from the National Taiwan University in Taipei found that people who stop taking their prescribed cholesterol drugs are at a higher risk of developing Parkinson's.
Cholesterol causes many health issues and can lead to the development of many diseases and disorders. Researchers from National Taiwan University in Taipei found that discontinuing prescribed drugs to control cholesterol can be harmful.
Contrary to standard treatment in the United States, Taiwan's compulsory national health insurance program reimbursement policy demands doctors to stop subscribing cholesterol drugs to a patient once his or her cholesterol levels reach the treatment goal.
"This policy allowed us to see whether there was any difference in the risk of Parkinson's in people who stopped taking statins compared to the ones who kept taking them," said study author Jou-Wei Lin, MD, PhD, of National Taiwan University in Taipei in a press statement.
They conducted a study on 43,810 people in Taiwan who were taking statins and did not have Parkinson's disease. Researchers observed a significant difference in two types of statins. People taking lipophilic, or fat-soluble statins displayed a reduced risk of developing Parkinson's while those taking hydrophilic, or water-soluble, statins showed no such association. Those who stopped taking the fat-soluble statins were 58 percent more likely to develop Parkinson's disease than those who kept taking the drugs.
Researchers also observed that a total of 25 people taking fat-soluble statins developed Parkinson's from a total of nearly 15 million. For water-soluble statins, 14 people developed Parkinson's from nearly four million people on the drugs.
The findings were published in the online issue of Neurology.
