Cholesterol-lowering drugs, widely used to reduce the risk of heart attack, could also be effective in treating multiple sclerosis, according to new research published on Friday.

Already hailed for revolutionizing the management of heart disease, the drugs, which will soon be available over the counter in Britain, are also being studied in the fight against Alzheimer’s disease and osteoporosis.

Now researchers from the Medical University of South Carolina have produced the first clinical evidence that statins can help in multiple sclerosis. The study is published in The Lancet medical journal.

A group of 30 patients with MS were given 80 mg a day of Merck & Co Inc’s Zocor, or simvastatin, and had a 44-percent reduction in brain lesions after three months of treatment, the study showed.

Brain lesions are markers of the progression and severity of MS, a debilitating disease in which nerve cells lose their insulating sheath, leading to muscle weakness, fatigue, bladder problems and impaired vision.

Since existing MS treatments, such as interferon, are expensive, must be injected and are only partially effective, swapping to statin pills-already taken by millions of people every day-would offer clear advantages.

But Professor Chris Polman, an MS expert at the VU Medical Center in Amsterdam, said more research is needed, including a large placebo-controlled clinical trial. The first of these trials is about to commence and could take around two years.

“It’s a very good start but it’s not conclusive,” Polman said in a telephone interview, adding it was possible some brain lesions may have disappeared spontaneously, given the relapsing-remitting nature of the disease.

DRUG SHARES FALL

The prospect of a new, simple treatment unnerved investors in manufacturers of existing MS drugs, and shares in Switzerland’s Serono SA and Germany’s Schering AG fell around one percent.

“The trial results raise the possibility that potentially more efficient and cheaper treatment options could enter the market within less than five years,” said Denise Anderson of Swiss brokerage Kepler Equities.

Sam Williams of Lehman Brothers, however, said statins could be positioned to be used alongside injectable MS drugs.

Serono, Schering and Biogen Idec market beta interferon injections, while Teva Pharmaceutical Industries Ltd sells a rival product called Copaxone.

The positive findings from Dr. Timothy Vollmer and colleagues in South Carolina follow earlier research showing statins can reverse paralysis caused by a similar condition to MS in mice.

Statins were first developed for their ability to block an enzyme involved in the liver’s production of cholesterol. But scientists have since found they also counter inflammation that may be central to several chronic degenerative diseases.

Mike O’Donovan, chief executive of Britain’s MS Society, said the latest findings are encouraging.

“These are early days, but we must hope statins can prove to be an effective weapon in the growing armory of treatments to attack this very distressing life-long disease,” he said.

Still, much work remains to be done, including discovering the optimal dose for statins in MS, which may have to be considerably higher than for people with High cholesterol.

In the meantime, Polman urged MS patients not to switch from existing medications, warning that premature use of statins could develop into a “dangerous boomerang.”

That risk may be heightened in countries such as Britain, which this week became the first to approve the sale of simvastatin without prescription, although only at a low 10-mg dose.

Other major manufacturers of statins include Pfizer Inc, whose Lipitor drug is the world’s largest-selling prescription medicine with sales last year of $9.23 billion, and AstraZeneca Plc, which recently launched Crestor.

SOURCE: The Lancet, May 15, 2004.