Giving hospitalised Covid-19 patients statins could cut their risk of dying or needing to be hooked up to a ventilator, a study has suggested.
Chinese researchers found severely-ill patients given the cholesterol-busting drugs – which can cost just pennies – were up to 45 per cent less likely to die.
And data showed statins cut the risk of patients needing mechanical ventilation, being admitted to intensive care or suffering a deadly complication.
Doctors are desperate for more weapons in their arsenal to treat Covid-19, which has killed almost 500,000 people worldwide in just six months.
Only one drug – £5 steroid dexamethasone – has so far been proven to boost survival odds for coronavirus patients who are admitted to hospital.
Dozens of other medicines are being tested in Britain and around the world, in the hope of saving lives and safely ease the world back into normal life.
Scientists behind the statins study at Wuhan University – based in the Chinese city where the pandemic began in December – called for more trials to prove the link.
Chinese researchers found severely-ill patients given the cholesterol-busting drugs – which can cost just pennies – were up to 45 per cent less likely to die
A wealth of research has proven the pills – taken by an estimated 6million Britons with high levels of ‘bad’ LDL cholesterol – save lives from heart attacks and strokes.
But statins are controversial among the medical community because of their potential side effects, including muscle pain and memory loss.
Doctors are desperate for ways to treat Covid-19, which studies conducted worldwide have suggested kills up to 1 per cent of all infected cases.
Statins have been found to slow the progression of lung injury in animals, improve immune cell responses and cut inflammation.
The Wuhan study – which looked at nearly 14,000 patients – was not a randomised control trial, considered the gold-standard of scientific research.
It means the observational results, published in the journal Cell Metabolism, cannot prove that statins improved the survival odds.
Dr Hongliang Li and colleagues found 6.8 per cent of the hospitalised Covid-19 patients who didn’t take statins died after 28 days.
In comparison, the rate among the entirety of hospitalised patients who had been given statins was 5.5 per cent – statistically a fifth lower.
This is despite patients on statins tending to be older and having underlying conditions, two known factors that raise the risk of dying from the coronavirus.
Results were even stronger when the data was split into two groups matched to be of a similar age, disease severity and pre-existing conditions.
Data showed 9.4 per cent of patients not given statins died, compared to 5.2 per cent of those who had taken the cholesterol-busting drugs.
Statins were also linked to lower rates of patients being admitted to intensive care or suffering acute respiratory distress – a life-threatening Covid-19 complication.
Results also suggested that ACE inhibitors and angiotensin II receptor blockers – drugs given to high blood pressure patients – did not worsen disease severity.
One expert said: ‘There was a certain amount of evidence to suggest they might be associated with lower risk, though that evidence is not clear.’
The findings debunk claims made early on in the crisis by experts in Greece and Switzerland, given the drugs both increase the expression of ACE-2 receptors.
SARS-CoV-2, the virus behind Covid-19, is thought to enter the body and cause infection through the receptors, which are found throughout the body.
Dr Li said the findings warrant the need for further trials to investigate the link between statins and Covid-19 survival rates.
Independent scientists called for caution over the findings, pointing to flaws within the research that may wrongly allude to statins being protective.
University College London cardiologist Dr Riyaz Patel said patients on statins may have been in hospital as a precaution because their co-morbidities left them at high risk.
This could mean patients who weren’t given statins were admitted to hospital with more severe bouts of the disease, which may explain why they were more likely to die.
Professor Naveed Sattar, of the University of Glasgow, said the results far from proved statins lowered the risk of dying from Covid-19.
He added: ‘Only randomised trials can settle this question. If further observational studies point in same direction, then such trials should be conducted.’
Professor Kevin McConway, an Open University statistician, called the results ‘interesting’ but also warned they don’t prove statins are Covid-19 life-savers.
He said: ‘People weren’t asked to take, or not take, statins by the researchers. The statin users were people who were prescribed statins anyway.’
Professor McConway said the two groups would likely have had many different characteristics, which could have been behind the differences in death rates.
The study also provides ‘useful evidence’ on the safety of ACE inhibitors and ARBs in Covid-19 patients, according to experts.
Professor McConway said the results do offer ‘a certain amount of reassurance that they are unlikely to be harmful in Covid-19 patients’.