Statins lower cholesterol in HIV patients

A new study published in the March 3 on-line issue of Annals of Internal Medicine has found that cholesterol medications can work well  among certain HIV patients at risk for cardiovascular disease, in part  due to lipid abnormalities linked to certain antiretroviral therapies.

"This should be encouraging for patients and their providers," said the  study's lead author, Michael Silverberg, a research scientist with  Kaiser Permanente, the largest non-profit health insurer in the USA. He  explained that HIV patients given cholesterol-lowering treatments such  as statins get slightly less benefit on cholesterol levels from the  treatment than patients without the infection, but it is still a  clinically-significant benefit and side effects from the drugs occurred  in very few patients.

Scientists from the firm studied 829 patients with HIV infection and  6,941 without who started cholesterol treatment during 1996 to 2005.  Among those on statins, low-density lipoprotein cholesterol levels  declined only 3% less for HIV patients. However, among those on  gemfibrozil, triglyceride levels declined 15% less for HIV  sufferers. HIV patients taking both non-nucleoside reverse  transcriptase inhibitors and gemfibrozil had identical triglyceride  declines compared with those without HIV. Side effects of occurred in  very few patients, the researchers noted.