Statins, which are proscribed for high cholesterol levels, might have some secondary benefits too.
That’s according to a new study from Biological Psychiatry.
According to Neuroscience News, researchers at Oxford found that statins seem to influence negative emotional bias.
As the authors note, “Reducing negative emotional bias can be important for the treatment of depression,” and statins seem to affect emotion processing.
Now, what is an “emotional bias“?
It is, “a distortion in cognition and decision making due to emotional factors.”
You can have either a negative or a positive emotional bias, and as you might expect, a negative one is associated with depression.
For example, people with a negative emotional bias are more likely to attribute negative judgments to neutral events.
In extreme cases, this can lead to catastrophizing.
We can turn something objectively neutral (if there can ever be such a thing) into a reason to become dour, or to worry, or panic, or draw an inappropriate conclusion.
My wife has a positive emotional bias, which means she’s more likely to see things in an unrealistically positive light.
I’m the opposite.
We often talk about the phrase: “What’s the worst that can happen?”
She asks it with a carefree lilt that helps her sleep at night, and generally makes her extremely positive about life.
I ask it, and answer “What’s the worst that can happen?” by buying tons of insurance, staying awake at night, and failing to see the sun when it shines.
I suspect that both of us are victims of strong emotional biases — hers the positive kind, mine the negative kind.
You can guess which one might be associated with depression and anxiety.
Essentially, the study by the Oxford researchers found that folks on statins had reduced negative emotional bias compared to the control groups, and as such, “may provide protection against depression.”
Why?
Potentially, through their anti-inflammatory properties.
An overwhelming number of studies link increased inflammation and depression with one another.
If statins reduce inflammation, then perhaps that’s one of the mechanistic reasons.
Nevertheless, the researchers caution against handing out statins for depression (so far), but urge more clinical trials.
Remember, statins can have plenty of side effects, although a recent study showed that most of the side effects people complain about can be attributed to anxiety, due to the “nocebo” effect.
Still, talk to your doctor about everything.
[Photo: That, dear reader, is the chemical structure of the statin, lovastatin, via Panoramix303]
