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Statins May Prove Helpful for Heart Disease, Diabetes

Aired July 29, 2003 - 11:24   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.


DARYN KAGAN, CNN ANCHOR: Time for our "Daily Dose" of health news. Drugs used to lower cholesterol that may help people with heart failure, even if their cholesterol levels are normal. Our medical correspondent Dr. Sanjay Gupta joins us from New York with details on this new study a group of drugs called statins. Sanjay, good morning.
DR. SANJAY GUPTA, CNN MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: Good morning. Statins are becoming a popular drug, Daryn. There's no question about it. People have been talking about it for long, as you mentioned, with relationship to high cholesterol and with relationship to coronary artery disease.

But now a new study looking at what about affect of statins on isolated heart failure? People who don't have coronary artery disease or people who don't have high cholesterol, could statins have a role there as well?

Couple of things about statins. First of all, Lipitor is one of world's most popular drugs last year. It's about $7 billion. So that just gives you a sense of just how common these drugs are. May be one step closer to even becoming more common if the study pans out to be true.

Let's take a look at the study. First of all, it was a small study, only looking at about 50 patients, a Japanese study. They actually gave some people either the statin drugs, simvisitatin (ph) in this case, or a placebo. And this is people who just have, again, isolated heart failure, maybe due to a virus or some other cause. But not due to coronary artery disease, not due to high cholesterol.

What they found was that just after 14 weeks of therapy, 40 percent of the people who received the medication, the statin in this case, had symptoms of improvement. And that was with the low dose. Typically the dose is about 40 milligrams a day. These people got 5 milligrams a day, so a lower does.

Exciting stuff, no question about statins. How this is going to sort of play out, that's going to take time. Again, this thing's sort of a small study. But people are really placing a lot of faith on these statins, again, in terms of reducing the risk of heart disease, such a huge problem around the world -- Daryn.

KAGAN: All right, Sanjay, I did homework today. I went on the Web to see what I could find out about statins...

GUPTA: Uh-oh. KAGAN: Uh-oh, yeah. Ended up with more questions than answers. A lot of stuff came up about statins and diabetics and how a lot of diabetics should be on these kind of drugs.

GUPTA: Yes, you know, it's sort of interesting. Again, a lot of these disease processes including diabetes are all sort of inner linked. Diabetes may actually lead to higher likelihood of heart disease and all that sort of stuff.

So if you target populations now that are higher risk of developing heart disease, developing stroke, things like that and give them medications to try to prevent those diseases from happening early, then you might have a really significant impact. Diabetics are such a population so statins may have a role there.

The flip side of it, and just to be balanced here, Daryn, is there's some concern that actually reducing cholesterol as these statin drugs do may have some delitarious events. People are always surprised by that. But cholestoral does have some important roles in the body as well in terms of transmission of nerve impulses. People on these medications sometimes have complained about numbness or tingling. Some people have even complained about memory loss. There are large studies underway to check into the side effects of these medications, especially as they become more popular -- Daryn.

KAGAN: Dr. Sanjay Gupta in New York. Always make me nervous when I get on the Web there, but thanks for answering those questions. Appreciate it.

TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com






Aired July 29, 2003 - 11:24   ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
DARYN KAGAN, CNN ANCHOR: Time for our "Daily Dose" of health news. Drugs used to lower cholesterol that may help people with heart failure, even if their cholesterol levels are normal. Our medical correspondent Dr. Sanjay Gupta joins us from New York with details on this new study a group of drugs called statins. Sanjay, good morning.
DR. SANJAY GUPTA, CNN MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: Good morning. Statins are becoming a popular drug, Daryn. There's no question about it. People have been talking about it for long, as you mentioned, with relationship to high cholesterol and with relationship to coronary artery disease.

But now a new study looking at what about affect of statins on isolated heart failure? People who don't have coronary artery disease or people who don't have high cholesterol, could statins have a role there as well?

Couple of things about statins. First of all, Lipitor is one of world's most popular drugs last year. It's about $7 billion. So that just gives you a sense of just how common these drugs are. May be one step closer to even becoming more common if the study pans out to be true.

Let's take a look at the study. First of all, it was a small study, only looking at about 50 patients, a Japanese study. They actually gave some people either the statin drugs, simvisitatin (ph) in this case, or a placebo. And this is people who just have, again, isolated heart failure, maybe due to a virus or some other cause. But not due to coronary artery disease, not due to high cholesterol.

What they found was that just after 14 weeks of therapy, 40 percent of the people who received the medication, the statin in this case, had symptoms of improvement. And that was with the low dose. Typically the dose is about 40 milligrams a day. These people got 5 milligrams a day, so a lower does.

Exciting stuff, no question about statins. How this is going to sort of play out, that's going to take time. Again, this thing's sort of a small study. But people are really placing a lot of faith on these statins, again, in terms of reducing the risk of heart disease, such a huge problem around the world -- Daryn.

KAGAN: All right, Sanjay, I did homework today. I went on the Web to see what I could find out about statins...

GUPTA: Uh-oh. KAGAN: Uh-oh, yeah. Ended up with more questions than answers. A lot of stuff came up about statins and diabetics and how a lot of diabetics should be on these kind of drugs.

GUPTA: Yes, you know, it's sort of interesting. Again, a lot of these disease processes including diabetes are all sort of inner linked. Diabetes may actually lead to higher likelihood of heart disease and all that sort of stuff.

So if you target populations now that are higher risk of developing heart disease, developing stroke, things like that and give them medications to try to prevent those diseases from happening early, then you might have a really significant impact. Diabetics are such a population so statins may have a role there.

The flip side of it, and just to be balanced here, Daryn, is there's some concern that actually reducing cholesterol as these statin drugs do may have some delitarious events. People are always surprised by that. But cholestoral does have some important roles in the body as well in terms of transmission of nerve impulses. People on these medications sometimes have complained about numbness or tingling. Some people have even complained about memory loss. There are large studies underway to check into the side effects of these medications, especially as they become more popular -- Daryn.

KAGAN: Dr. Sanjay Gupta in New York. Always make me nervous when I get on the Web there, but thanks for answering those questions. Appreciate it.

TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com