New research suggests that taking cholesterol-lowering statins is associated with a lower risk of developing open-angle glaucoma and a reduced need for intensive treatments or surgery. The findings were published in the British Journal of Ophthalmology.
Appearing on BBC Morning Live, Dr Oscar Duke discussed the results, saying: “I always want to be hopeful as someone myself with not a lot of eyesight to lose left. Um, anything that can help would be fantastic. And glaucoma is one of those conditions that we don’t have a cure for, but we do have great treatments for potentially. So, lots that can be done. But what about statins? Well, we know statins are really good at lowering cholesterol, reducing our risk of heart attacks and strokes. But can they help us with glaucoma?”
What the study found
Dr Duke explained that the study was conducted in California, US, and followed more than 200,000 people. “This is a study that’s been done in the US in California. And what they did was they followed people, 210,000 people, looked at their data, those who were on statins, and then compared with 210,000 people who weren’t taking statins.”
He added: “They found that if you were taking a statin over a five-year period, then there was a 15% reduction in your risk of glaucoma. Now there are quite a few caveats to this. So this is one of those studies that can show an association but not a definite cause as I often talk about. So really important to think about that. We don’t know for certain that it’s the statin causing that. Actually in the study when they looked over a longer time period over 10 years there was a slightly less reduction in the glaucoma in those people taking statins.”
Caveats and further research
Dr Duke noted that some studies have shown that long-term statin use might slightly increase the risk of glaucoma. He said: ”The honest answer is it’s interesting. We don’t know exactly what this relationship is. It certainly doesn’t mean that we’ve got enough evidence at the moment to say take a statin and you won’t get glaucoma or it will significantly reduce your risk. But the study did also show that those who had glaucoma and were taking statins were less likely to need strong treatments.”
He explained: “So they talked in the film about first having some drops and perhaps having some laser treatments and you are less likely to need to go up to that level or even higher levels of having surgery treatments if you were taking statins. So I think what’s going to happen is more research will be done. We’ll do a formal study to really evaluate this over time and hopefully we’ll find a link that we can use because statins are broadly a very safe treatment for most people.”
The researchers said future randomised trials were needed to investigate the effects of statins on the development and treatment of glaucoma. Those taking statins also had a 60% lower risk of undergoing selective laser trabeculoplasty (SLT) and an 11% lower risk of requiring eye drops to reduce pressure in the eye. The lower risk remained after ten years.
Statins are widely used to lower cholesterol, and previous research has suggested they could also prevent or slow down nerve cell death. However, other studies have linked long-term statin use with raised eye pressure and an increased risk of glaucoma.
