Abstract

LEON, Carlos Andrés  and  MORO, Silvia. Statins in heart failure: "to give or not to give". Insuf. card. [online]. 2007, vol.2, n.4, pp.168-174. ISSN 1852-3862.

Patients with increased cholesterol levels are at increased risk to experience cardiovascular events and to die from vascular disease. Statins have been proven to effectively reduce cholesterol levels and subsequently reduce cardiovascular events in patients with coronary artery disease or at increased risk to develop coronary artery disease. However, in patients with chronic heart failure (CHF), low levels of cholesterol are related to increased mortality. This phenomenon of reverse epidemiology is not unique to CHF, but also exists in other critical disease and in the elderly in general as well. An important rationale has been provided by the endotoxin hypothesis, which suggests that cholesterol has an important scavenger function regarding harmful en dotoxins. Indeed, these lines of evidence predict a harmful effect of statin treatment in patients with CHF. However, statins not only lower cholesterol, but also have been reported to exhibit pleiotropic effects, including reduction of inflammation and improvement of endothelial function. In order to reconcile these contradictory lines of evidence, it is necessary to examine the pharmacological mechanisms of effects of statin treatment. In this review, we provide the available lines of evidence in animal models and humans predicting both harmful and beneficial effects of statin treatment in CHF. We emphasize the importance of additional research specifically in CHF models and patients.

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