A recent study from the University of Alberta has the potential to change how patients with kidney disease are treated in order to reduce their risk of heart attack and stroke.
Researchers reviewed more than 800,000 patient files through the Alberta Kidney Disease Network to see whether high cholesterol levels were a good indicator of heart disease.
“In the general population cholesterol is an important determinant of risk and it’s used as a basis for treatment,” said Marcello Tonelli, lead author of the study. He explained the basis of the study was to analyze the association between cholesterol and heart disease when applied to kidney disease patients.
The researchers found that patients with the weakest kidney function were at a higher risk for heart disease. However when looking at cholesterol testing, their levels were low.
“Even those people that had low levels of cholesterol were at very high risk (for heart disease),” explained Tonelli. “Although the risk did increase a bit further at the higher levels of cholesterol, it didn’t increase to the same extent as it does in normal levels of kidney function.”
“This would argue that maybe cholesterol shouldn’t be used as the prime determinant of risk.”
Statin medications, such as atorvastatin (Lipitor), lovastatin (Mevacor), rosuvastatin (Crestor), simvastatin (Zocor), pravastatin (Pravachol) and fluvastatin (Lescol) are used among the general population to reduce the risk of heart attack and stroke, regardless of cholesterol levels.
One of the recommendations Tonelli and his research team made was to treat all kidney disease patients with statin drugs since they are a group prone to heart disease.
Similarly, statin medications have recently been adopted as part of a new standard of care to treat diabetic patients, as they are also a group at high risk for heart disease. As stated by Health Canada, the overall cardiovascular benefits of statin drugs outweigh the increased risk of diabetes and poorer glycemic control.
The research team’s recommendation has recently been cited in the new Canadian guidelines for treatment and management of high cholesterol.
