Easy Health Options Staff | Feb 17, 2012 | Comments 8
While many Americans take statin drugs to reduce their cholesterol in order to protect their heart, that reduction in cholesterol may be hurting their brains.“If you (take) cholesterol from the brain, then you directly affect the machinery that triggers the release of neurotransmitters. Neurotransmitters affect the data-processing and memory functions. In other words — how smart you are and how well you remember things,” says Yeon-Kyun Shin, a researcher at Iowa State University. Shin warns that drugs that inhibit the liver from making cholesterol may also keep the brain from making cholesterol, which is vital to efficient brain function.
In his experiments, Shin tested the activity of the neurotransmitter-release machinery from brain cells without cholesterol present and measured how well the machinery functioned. He then included cholesterol in the system and again measured the protein function. Cholesterol increased protein function by five times.
“Our study shows there is a direct link between cholesterol and the neurotransmitter release,” says Shin. “And we know exactly the molecular mechanics of what happens in the cells. Cholesterol changes the shape of the protein to stimulate thinking and memory.
“If you try to lower the cholesterol by taking medicine that is attacking the machinery of cholesterol synthesis in the liver, that medicine goes to the brain too. And then it reduces the synthesis of cholesterol which is necessary in the brain,” says Shin.
Shin’s findings were published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
http://www.easyhealthoptions.com/alternative-medicine/statins-slow-your-brain-down/
