Popular cholesterol-lowering drugs called statins did not protect elderly people from   Alzheimer’s or other kinds of dementia, a study reports today.

Statins are a group of drugs widely prescribed to reduce the risk of heart disease. Recent scientific evidence suggested these drugs also might protect the brain from   Alzheimer’s.

The new findings don’t support that hope as yet, but Sam Gandy, an Alzheimer’s researcher at Thomas Jefferson University in Philadelphia, says they represent just one piece of evidence in a line of studies that suggested a role for statins in the prevention or treatment of   Alzheimer’s.

Statins might work as a shield only if given early in life, before the disease has a chance to take hold in the brain, says Gandy, who is also a spokesman for the Chicago-based Alzheimer’s Association.

The people in the study averaged 75 years old and had been taking statins for an average of five years, says lead researcher Thomas Rea of the University of Washington in Seattle. Their age could explain the negative findings, he says.

Rea and his colleagues studied 2,798 older people who had no sign of cognitive problems at the study’s start. The team also kept track of those who developed dementia, including   Alzheimer’s, over a six-year period. They also noted whether participants were taking statin drugs such as Lipitor or Zocor.

Participants took cognitive and memory tests throughout the study. The researchers found that those who took statins developed dementia or Alzheimer’s at about the same rate as those who were not taking the drugs. The findings are reported in the Archives of Neurology.

Despite the results, Rea and other experts aren’t ready to give up on statins. “We did not find any evidence of protection, but our study is not definitive,” Rea says.

To get more proof, researchers will have to give a large number of middle-aged people either statins or placebo pills and then check to see whether the people getting the statins are shielded from the disease years later.

“Maybe if you start giving these drugs when people are 50 instead of 75, you’ll get a better effect,” says Larry Sparks, an Alzheimer’s researcher at Sun Health Research Institute in Sun City, Ariz.

Sparks has evidence suggesting that statins can help people who already have developed Alzheimer’s. His small study published in May shows that atorvastatin (Lipitor) helps boost memory and cognitive ability in people with mild to moderate Alzheimer’s.

Ongoing studies could help clear up some of the confusion about whether statins can help protect the brain, Gandy says: “We may have some answers later this year.”

Source: USA TODAY