Statins may be protecting people from more than just cholesterol, suggests new research from the University of California in San Diego.
Patients with glaucoma who take the cholesterol-busting pills appear less likely to need surgery—and have a reduced chance of the condition worsening, according to the findings.
Called the “silent thief of sight” because the vision loss usually occurs slowly over a long period of time, glaucoma may cause blindness if left untreated, damaging the optic nerve, which transmits visual information from the eye to the brain.
The new study, published online in the British Journal of Ophthalmology, found that people who already have glaucoma who are taking statins appear less likely to need stronger treatments, such as extra eye drops or surgery to keep it under control.
“Statins are prescribed to lower cholesterol levels but studies have indicated that they may also prevent or slow nerve cell death,” said study author Dr. Robert Weinreb.
But their potential role in preventing or slowing down glaucoma—a leading cause of irreversible blindness which permanently damages the optic nerve—is poorly understood.
Dr. Weinreb and his team searched a large global database covering 165 million people and compared more than 210,000 patients who had a record of statin use between 2006 and 2026 with a matched control group of 210,000 people who had no record of using statins. People in both groups had to have a recorded ophthalmological follow up.
A multitude of reduced risk
The findings show that statins were linked to a lower risk of the individual progressing to need glaucoma surgery—or any other treatment.
• Statin use was associated with a 15% lower risk of developing the most common form of the progressive eye disease.
• At five years, statin use was associated with a 36% lower risk of incisional glaucoma surgery and a 55% reduced risk of minimally invasive glaucoma surgery (MIGS), a keyhole procedure to lower the intraocular pressure in the eye.
• Statins were also associated with a 60% lower risk of ‘selective laser trabeculoplasty’ (SLT), a procedure that lowers the pressure in the eye by using laser pulses.
• There was also a 12% reduced risk of (needing) eye drops to reduce the pressure in the eye—linked to statin use.”
And after 10 years, statin use continued to be associated with a lower risk of incision glaucoma surgery, MIGS, SLT, and use of eye drops.
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In a separate analysis, more than 30,000 people with glaucoma who were taking statins were compared with almost 250,000 with glaucoma who weren’t taking the drug.
Although these were observational studies, so no firm conclusions can be drawn about cause and effect, the findings add to the growing literature about the neuro-protective effect of statin drugs.
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