British researchers have found that lowering cholesterol levels could help the body’s immune system fight infections. The team at the University of Edinburgh conducted the experiments on mice and found a direct link between the workings of the immune system and cholesterol levels.
Edinburgh’s Peter Ghazal, whose study was published in the Public Library of Science (PLoS) Biology journal said, “What we have discovered is that a key immune hormone stimulated upon infection can lower cholesterol levels and thereby deprive viral infections of the sustenance they need to grow…Drugs currently exist to lower cholesterol levels, but the next step would be to see if such drugs would also work to help bolster our immune systems.”
Statins are a group of drugs that are prescribed to lower “bad” or LDL cholesterol that is a risk factor heart attacks and strokes. These drugs include Pfizer’s Lipitor, AstraZeneca’s Crestor etc. Ghazal said many years of research work lay ahead before these findings could be translated into human treatments, but he thought statin-like drugs could in future be developed to have potent anti-infective effects as well as being able to reduce levels of bad cholesterol.
Ghazal said his research team wanted to new ways of combating infections, which could for example involve mimicking immune signals sent out to lower the production of cholesterol. Such treatments would help overcome the problems of drug resistance that is common with antibiotics used nowadays, Ghazal said. He explained that these statins would aim to enhance the way the body responds to an infection, instead of focusing on attacking the bug itself.
The research was funded by the Wellcome Trust, the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council, the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council and the British Heart Foundation.
By Dr Ananya Mandal