Intensive statin treatment improves baroreflex sensitivity: another cardioprotective mechanism for statins?

Abstract

Ten otherwise healthy men (mean (SD) age 49.5 (8.7) years) with hypercholesterolaemia (at least > 7.5 mmol/l before starting cholesterol treatment) were recruited. Each subject provided informed consent in writing and the Tayside ethics committee on medical research approved the study. Subjects were studied on four occasions separated by three, six week periods during which they rotated through usual treatment, diet only, diet plus cholestyramine, and diet plus atorvastatin 10 mg, respectively. On each study day subjects' responses to infused noradrenaline (norepinephrine) in the fasting state were determined between 0900 and 1300. Subjects adhered to their diet except before each assessment when each subject was fasted for 10 hours and abstained from alcohol, caffeine, and nicotine for 24, 24, and 2 hours, respectively. At 0900 on each study day, two 18 gauge intravenous cannulae were inserted under local anaesthetic into forearm veins, one in the right antecubital fossa, for infusions of noradrenaline, and one in the left antecubital fossa, for blood sampling. An infusion of noradrenaline was administered in stepwise 10 minute infusions (0.05, 0.10, and 0.20 μg/kg/min for 10 minutes at each dose level) by the use of an infusion pump (IMED, San Diego, California, USA). Noradrenaline was used instead of phenylephrine to test the baroreflex as it was felt to be more physiological than phenylephrine and because it had been used in a landmark study by Nickenig.4