Statins in hypertensive patients: potential explanations for the ASCOT-LLA study results.

The recently published Lipid-Lowering Arm of the Anglo-Scandinavian Cardiac Outcomes Trial (ASCOT-LLA) provides interesting evidence for the use of statins in hypertensive patients with average cholesterol concentrations and other cardiovascular risk factors. The clinical benefit of atorvastatin in these patients is probably explained by both lipid-dependent and lipid-independent effects of the drug. Many of these effects are related to inhibition of the synthesis of isoprenoid, which serves as lipid attachment for a variety of proteins implicated in intracellular signalling. These proteins have an important role in cell growth, actin cytoskeleton organisation, membrane trafficking, gene expression, cell proliferation/migration and programmed cell death. In this article we summarise the different effects of statins inrelation to the results observed in the ASCOT-LLA study.