Statins may protect people from glaucoma or blindness by preventing or slowing the death of nerve cells

Statins may protect people against more than just cholesterol, a new study from the University of California, San Diego, suggests.

Glaucoma patients who take cholesterol-lowering pills appear less likely to require surgery and have a reduced risk of their condition worsening, findings show.

Called the “silent thief of sight” because vision loss usually occurs slowly over a long period of time, glaucoma can cause blindness if left untreated, damaging the optic nerve, which transmits visual information from the eye to the brain.

The new study, published online in the British Journal of Ophthalmology, found that people who already have glaucoma and take statins appear less likely to need stronger treatments, such as additional eye drops or surgery to keep it under control.

“Statins are prescribed to lower cholesterol levels, but studies have indicated that they can also prevent or slow nerve cell death,” said study author Dr. Robert Weinreb.

But their potential role in preventing or slowing glaucoma – a leading cause of irreversible blindness that permanently damages the optic nerve – is poorly understood.

Dr. Weinreb and his team searched a large global database covering 165 million people and compared more than 210,000 patients who had ever used statins between 2006 and 2026 with a matched control group of 210,000 people who had never used statins. People in both groups had to benefit from recorded ophthalmological follow-up.

A multitude of reduced risks

The results show that statins were linked to a lower risk of the individual requiring surgery for glaucoma or any other treatment.

• Statin use was associated with a 15% lower risk of developing the most common form of progressive eye disease.

• At five years, statin use was associated with a 36% reduced risk of incisional glaucoma surgery and a 55% reduced risk of minimally invasive glaucoma surgery (MIGS), a keyhole procedure to reduce intraocular pressure in the eye.

• Statins have also been linked to a 60% lower risk of “selective laser trabeculoplasty” (SLT), a procedure that lowers pressure in the eye using laser pulses.

• There was also a 12% reduction in the risk of (needing) eye drops to reduce pressure in the eye, linked to statin use.

And after 10 years, statin use continued to be associated with a lower risk of incisional glaucoma surgery, MIGS, SLT, and eye drop use.

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In a separate analysis, more than 30,000 people with glaucoma who took statins were compared with nearly 250,000 people with glaucoma who did not take the drug.

Although these are observational studies, no definitive conclusions can be drawn about cause and effect, the findings add to the growing literature on the neuroprotective effect of statins.

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