Statins may reduce the risk of death and severe Covid-19, suggests a study presented during the Anesthesiology 2022 meeting in New Orleans.

The retrospective study analysed the medical records of 38,875 patients hospitalised for Covid-19 at 185 hospitals in the US. Of these, 30 per cent regularly used statins. 

Statin users were 37 per cent less likely to die from Covid-19 than non-users and 31 per cent less likely to die from any cause. Regular statin users were also significantly less likely to:

• Be admitted to the intensive care unit (by 31 per cent)
• Need mechanical ventilation (49 per cent)
• Develop blood clots (54 per cent)
• Have severe or critical acute respiratory distress syndrome (28 and 43 per cent respectively)
• Develop severe sepsis with septic shock (by 34 per cent). 

Statin users also had shorter hospital stays and spent less time on ventilators (by 9.87 and 8.90 days respectively).

“While there is no ‘magic bullet’ to help patients who are very ill with Covid-19, statins decrease inflammation, which may help reduce the severity of the disease,” said lead author Ettore Crimi, professor of anaesthesiology and critical care medicine at the University of Central Florida. 

“This research illustrates the importance of evaluating medications that could be repurposed to help patients in ways other than their intended use. Our results suggest statins could be an additional cost-effective solution against Covid-19 disease severity and should be studied further.”