Turns out that the most common drug for lowering cholesterol may also be able to help with your asthma control; we may soon see statins in use for asthma control.

Statin drugs reduce the presence of cholesterol (also called lipids) in your blood stream. For adult asthma patients, statins also seem to improve peak air flow as well as reduce the need for “rescue” medications. This is the reason why researchers suggest that statins could be used for asthma control.

Researchers hypothesize that this is a result of reduced inflammation in the whole body. Fortunately for those with asthma, statins also appear to reduce inflammation in the airways.

This doesn’t mean that you’ll be able to through away your asthma medication. Statins would likely be prescribed as an add-on therapy to be used in addition to other standard asthma medications. However, statins have to be approved for use in asthma through a clinical trial.

At present, research on the use of statins has been mixed, with some studies even showing worse symptoms for patients with lung disease.

Source: Medpage Today