Statins May Lower Risk of Osteoporosis-Related Fractures

In addition to already established protective effects of statin on the bone, new research finds an association between statin use and a reduced risk for osteoporotic fracture among older adults. The results of the study are published in Osteoporosis International.

“Based on these findings, we can speculate that the beneficial effect of statin may be more pronounced in aged and fragile bones,” the investigators said.

Researchers included adults at least 60 years old without a previous history of osteoporosis who were started on statin therapy from the Korean National Health Insurance Service-Senior database for this retrospective population-based study. The study period dated between January 2004 and December 2012.

The study included 21,318 statin-users (mean age 70.5 years) and 344,338 nonusers (mean age 70.3 years).

Among those who used statin, 7.9% patients (n=1675) developed major osteoporotic fractures, compared to 15.5% of patients (n=53,284) in the nonuser group.

The most common osteoporotic fractures, regardless of statin use, were vertebral (69.4%), distal radius (28.9%), hip (16.1%), and humerus (1.40%) fractures.

“Given the increasing prevalence of vertebral fractures with subsequent mortality, statin treatment should be recommended even in very old people,” the study concluded.

Reference:
Seo DH, Jeong Y, Cho Y, Kim SH, Hong S, Suh YJ and Ahn SH. Age- and dose-dependent effect of statin use on the risk of osteoporotic fracture in older adults. Osteoporos Int. 2023. 34; 1927–1936. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00198-023-06879-4