It may be possible to lessen the severity of a rare and potentially lethal form of epilepsy with common statins, which are used to lower cholesterol levels for people with heart disease.
Status epilepticus is a severe form of epilepsy in which seizures last more than 5 minutes and can sometimes go on for days or weeks, potentially leading to permanent brain damage or death.
Aur茅lie Hanin at the Brain and Spine Institute in Paris, France, and her colleagues analysed the blood and cerebrospinal fluid of 63 people with status epilepticus and compared the results with the same information from 92 people who either had epilepsy without these severe seizures or had a functional neurological disorder. The researchers also analysed the brain material of mice who had been induced to have the disorder.
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They found an increase in cholesterol synthesis in the mice brains, and they saw signs indicating a similar increase in humans.
Cholesterol can鈥檛 cross an intact blood-brain barrier 鈥� the protective cell structure that helps stop toxins passing from the bloodstream to the brain 鈥� without being broken down by an enzyme in the nervous system.
The researchers looked for a byproduct of this breakdown in the human blood plasma. In people with status epilepticus, they found a significant decrease, and they also saw higher levels of a protein that transports cholesterol. Hanin says these two signs indicate that in people with status epilepticus, cholesterol isn鈥檛 being eliminated and is instead being stored up in the brain. She presented the work at a meeting of the Society for Neuroscience in Chicago on 20 October.
鈥淭o treat the increase of cholesterol synthesis in the brain, you have to use a statin able to cross the blood-brain barrier, but currently there are only three statins that are able to do that,鈥� she says.
She adds that there haven鈥檛 been studies to evaluate the effect of statins on this type of neurological disorder. But found that people who were previously on statins to treat heart disease and later developed status epilepticus had a lower rate of death due to seizures.
Hanin says she and her colleagues would like to begin animal trials and later clinical trials to test the best types of statins to treat status epilepticus. 鈥淪tatins are not able to stop the status epilepticus,鈥� she says, 鈥渂ut they could be used to decrease the consequences of these seizures.鈥�
