Recently, a study was conducted by a group of epidemiologists at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine and it has found that it was possible to avoid the death from pneumonia by taking statins.

This study was published in the online edition of the BJM and it suggested that the risk of death from pneumonia in case of patients who regularly took statins for six months was much lesser than the patients who didn’t.

This research was completely funded by the Wellcome Trust and the Medical Research Council and echoing the findings of previous researches, this study has highlighted a possible protective effect of statins against mortality in patients suffering with pneumonia.

The team of researchers also mentioned the need of conducting a randomized clinical trial to find out the effect of statin from the beginning of the treatment as they had included patients for their research who were already on this medication.

Lead author of the study, Dr. Ian Douglas said, “Given the potential low number needed to treat to prevent a death suggested by this study, we believe that a strong case exists for randomized trials of statins in people with serious infection to determine if a simple and practical intervention at the point of diagnosis of pneumonia has a beneficial effect”.