Effect of statins on blood pressure: Analysis on adverse events released by FDA.

OBJECTIVE: As a class of cholesterol-lowering drugs, statins have been reported to cause unexpected decrease in blood pressure (BP). However, most studies in this issue were subject to inadequate study design or very small sample size. The present study was designed to examine the BP-lowering effect of various statins.

METHODS: Here we retrieved 5.9 million clinical reports submitted to FDA Adverse Event Reporting System (FAERS) from 2004 to 2015. Meta-analysis was performed to estimate the overall reporting odds ratio (ROR) of hypotension adverse events concurrent with various statins (i.e., atorvastatin, simvastatin, and rosuvastatin).

RESULTS: Comparing the reporting rate of hypotension event between statins and other drugs found that atorvastatin (pooled ROR = 1.26, adjusted p-value = 8.60 × 10-4 ) and simvastatin (pooled ROR = 1.94, adjusted p-value = 4.16 × 10-45 ) were significantly associated with reduction in BP. On the other hand, the association between rosuvastatin and hypotension was observed to be nonsignificant (adjusted p-value = 0.65).

CONCLUSION: To our knowledge, this is the first pooled analysis on large-scale data of adverse events to identify the BP-lowering effect of statins. The results will contribute to the development of novel statin-based antihypertensive therapies. In addition, the differential effects of individual statins can warrant subsequent research on the underlying mechanisms of BP control.