Cholesterol drugs protect smokers' lungs

[Sequoia]

Cholesterol drugs called statins could protect smokers from some of the lung damage inflicted by their habit, a team of researchers report today.

Their study of smokers and former smokers showed that patients who took statins were 35% less likely to need hospitalization or a visit to the emergency room for lung-related illness than those not taking the drugs.

Statins are a group of blockbuster drugs best known for lowering cholesterol and warding off heart disease. But over the past decade, researchers have come to appreciate that they also seem to reduce inflammation — and animal tests have hinted that they can protect the lungs.

Walid Younis at the University of Oklahoma Medical Center in Oklahoma City and his colleagues examined the medical records of 485 smokers and former smokers. They compared medical tests of the patients' lung health with those done, on average, 2.7 years previously.

<snip>

http://www.nature.com/news/2006/061023/full/061023-1.html

[survivor999]

1. Study sponsored by...

Let's see, who would gain from this?

[Ian David]

2. Oh, well. n/t

[goclark]

3. Protect their lungs but not their bones

I ached with so much pain from that medicine.

They had to take me off of them when I got a cramp in my foot and could not walk for three days.