{"id":74350,"date":"2025-10-14T17:14:11","date_gmt":"2025-10-14T17:14:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/74350\/"},"modified":"2025-10-14T17:14:11","modified_gmt":"2025-10-14T17:14:11","slug":"uks-most-prescribed-medication-may-slash-risk-by-80","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/74350\/","title":{"rendered":"UK’s most prescribed medication may slash risk by 80%"},"content":{"rendered":"

A study involving more than a million people has found that low cholesterol could slash your risk of developing dementia by as much as 80 per cent.<\/p>\n

The research, spearheaded by the University of Bristol, looked at participants across Denmark, England and Finland to understand how naturally lower cholesterol levels might protect against dementia.<\/p>\n

Dr Liv Tybj\u00e6rg Nordestgaard, who led the work while at Bristol and Copenhagen University Hospital, used genetic analysis to explore this connection.<\/p>\n

The team examined people born with genetic variations that naturally reduce their cholesterol levels – essentially mimicking what happens when someone takes cholesterol-lowering medications.<\/p>\n

Statins dominate the list of most commonly prescribed medications in the UK, according to the NHS. According to the health body, atorvastatin was prescribed a staggering 73 million times between 2024 and 2025.<\/p>\n

\"Statins\"\/<\/p>\n

The study showed scientists what might happen if someone took cholesterol-lowering drugs like statins<\/p>\n

| <\/p>\n

GETTY<\/p>\n

The findings<\/a>, published in Alzheimer’s & Dementia, drew on data from the UK Biobank, Copenhagen studies, and Finland’s FinnGen project.<\/p>\n

Researchers used a technique called Mendelian Randomisation, which allowed them to study how genetic variants affect dementia risk while avoiding the influence of lifestyle factors like diet and weight.<\/p>\n

The team measured differences in dementia risk by comparing people with these natural cholesterol-lowering variants to those without them..<\/p>\n

The method let them see what might happen if someone took cholesterol-lowering drugs like statins or ezetimibe – but without actually studying the medications themselves.<\/p>\n

It’s a clever way to get around one of the biggest challenges in dementia research – the fact that the condition typically doesn’t appear until much later in life.<\/p>\n

The results showed that reducing cholesterol by just one millimole per litre was linked to up to an 80 per cent drop in dementia risk for certain drug targets.<\/p>\n

“What our study indicates is that if you have these variants that lower your cholesterol, it looks like you have a significantly lower risk of developing dementia,” said Dr Nordestgaard, who now works at Copenhagen University Hospital’s Bispebjerg and Frederiksberg site.<\/p>\n

However, the research doesn’t provide definitive answers about the effects of cholesterol-lowering medicines themselves.<\/p>\n

The exact reasons why high cholesterol increases dementia risk aren’t fully understood, but Dr Nordestgaard has a theory about what might be happening.<\/p>\n

“Atherosclerosis is a result of the accumulation of cholesterol in your blood vessels,” she explained.<\/p>\n

\"brain<\/p>\n

Healthy blood flow is essential for dementia prevention <\/p>\n

| <\/p>\n

GETTY<\/p>\n

“It can be in both the body and the brain and increases the risk of forming small blood clots – one of the causes of dementia.”<\/p>\n

Looking ahead, Dr Nordestgaard believes the next step should be long-term clinical trials.<\/p>\n

“It would be a really good next step to carry out randomised clinical trials over 10 or 30 years, for example, where you give the participants cholesterol-lowering medication and then look at the risk of developing dementia,” she added.<\/p>\n

Our Standards:
\n The GB News Editorial Charter<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A study involving more than a million people has found that low cholesterol could slash your risk of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":74351,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[33],"tags":[5303,163,85,46,482,43,52701],"class_list":{"0":"post-74350","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-medication","8":"tag-dementia","9":"tag-health","10":"tag-il","11":"tag-israel","12":"tag-medication","13":"tag-news","14":"tag-sgg"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/74350","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=74350"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/74350\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/74351"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=74350"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=74350"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=74350"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}