Aug 22, 2017

Cholesterol-lowering drugs may work against typhoid

Jeff Nesbit (contributor)

Medical researchers and pharmaceutical companies are constantly looking for new uses for existing and proven medications, but it's likely no one saw this coming: cholesterol-lowering drugs might also work against typhoid and other infectious diseases, according to a new study in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Why it matters: There are more than 21 million cases of typhoid fever every year, killing more than 200,000 people annually — mostly in countries with poor sanitation and limited access to clean water. "The findings raise the intriguing possibility that cholesterol-lowering drugs, combined with vaccines, might help protect against typhoid," the researchers wrote.

What they found: Duke University researchers accidentally discovered that statins — which can lower cholesterol and hedge against the risk of heart attacks — might also work against typhoid while they were studying ways in which bacteria infected cells in some people and not others.

They found that a genetic variation is associated with whether bacteria that cause typhoid could enter cells — and the cells it could enter had higher levels of cholesterol on their membranes.
The same variation was associated with a risk for typhoid fever in a group of 1000 Vietnamese people whose DNA they tested.
The researchers also treated zebrafish with a cholesterol-lowering drug and found it reduced their susceptibility to typhoid infection.

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Cholesterol-lowering drugs may work against typhoid

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