Statins use may decrease risk of osteoporotic fractures among elderly

The study has been published in Osteoporosis International entitled Age- and dose-dependent effect of statin use on the risk of osteoporotic fracture in older adults.

Statins have protective effects on bone, but their association with osteoporosis-related measurement has controversial results.

In the present research article, researchers have found the Age, dose, and duration-dependent osteoprotective effect of statins in the older population. They have revealed the association of statin with osteoporotic fractures using the Korean National Health Insurance Service-Senior cohort database.

In this study 365,656 elderly who had no history of osteoporosis were started on a statin on January 1 2004. These were observed till December 31 2012.

The key results of the study are:

· The follow-up period was 6.27 years.

· During this period, there were 54,959 osteoporotic fractures, with the majority of vertebral fractures constituting 69.5%.

· Using statin decreased the risk of all outcomes for major osteoporotic fractures, hip fractures and vertebral fractures with adjusted HR of 0.77, 0.49 and 0.70.

· For those with statin initiated at Age≥ 80 years had the highest risk reduction for most outcomes.

· There was a negative association of a Higher cumulative dose of statin with the osteoporotic fracture risk; 0.97 for 30-364 cumulative daily defined dose, 0.45 for 365-1,094 and 0.22 for ≥ 1,095.

Based on the study's findings, they wrote that statin use reduced the risk of osteoporotic fractures in the older population.

Further reading:

Seo DH, Jeong Y, Cho Y, Kim SH, Hong S, Suh YJ, Ahn SH. Age- and dose-dependent effect of statin use on the risk of osteoporotic fracture in older adults. Osteoporos Int. 2023 August 8. doi 10.1007/s00198-023-06879-4. Epub ahead of print. PMID: 37552294.