A new study suggests that neither the use of statins nor low blood cholesterol levels significantly affected reproductive hormone levels in women. Reproductive hormones are derived from cholesterol, and some investigators have been concerned that cholesterol-lowering statin drugs may also reduce levels of these important hormones, thus causing premenopausal women to be less fertile.
Research data were drawn from an ongoing trial, the Women's Ischemia Syndrome Evaluation (WISE), sponsored by the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute.
"Although statins have been shown to be safe in clinical trials, fewer than 20 percent of trial participants have been women, and previous studies of the impact on reproductive hormones did not include premenopausal women of childbearing age," said Dr. C. Noel Bairey Merz, director of Cedars-Sinai Medical Center's Women's Health Program and primary investigator of the WISE study.
The statin study included 453 women--114 of whom had not yet gone through menopause--at four medical centers in the United States. About one quarter of the women were taking a statin drug.
Although the results offer more reassurance that statin use is safe, Dr. Bairey Merz noted that women in this sample were undergoing cardiac testing and may not be representative of the general population. Larger studies should focus on women in their childbearing years, she advised.
"Many women with high cholesterol need to take statins," the researcher added. "We're just trying to reassure ourselves that there isn't any hidden bad side effect that they've missed."
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