Statins and Brain Health: Alzheimer's Disease and Cerebrovascular Disease Biomarkers in Older Adults

Background: Statins have been proposed to reduce the risk of Alzheimer's disease (AD). Objective: Assess whether long-term statin use was associated with neuroimaging biomarkers of aging and dementia. Methods: We analyzed neuroimaging biomarkers in 1,160 individuals aged 65+ from the Mayo Clinic Study of Aging, a population-based prospective longitudinal study of cognitive aging. Results: Statin-treated (5+ years of therapy) individuals had greater burden of mid-and late-life cardiovascular disease (p < 0.001) than statin-untreated (=3 months) individuals. Lower fractional anisotropy in the genu of the corpus callosum, an early marker of cerebrovascular disease, was associated with long-term statin exposure (p < 0.035). No significant associations were identified between long-term statin exposure and cerebral amyloid or tau burden, AD pattern neurodegeneration, or white matter hyperintensity burden. Conclusion: Long-term statin therapy was not associated with differences in AD biomarkers. Individuals with long-term statin exposure had worse white matter integrity in the genu of the corpus callosum, consistent with the coexistence of higher cerebrovascular risk factor burden in this group.