ursodeoxycholic acid and statins

​ursodeoxycholic acid  

Administering ursodeoxycholic acid (UDCA) can stave off / stop the tendency of statins to induce / कारण बनना glucose intolerance and diabetes, a study by a group of researchers in China has found.

Statins 

1 Statins are prescribed to people with a high risk of cardiovascular disease. 

2 They work by blocking the activity of an enzyme involved in the metabolic pathway that produces LDL, or “bad”, cholesterol. 

3 Statins are on the World Health Organization’s list of essential medicines and among themost sold drugs worldwide.

4 However, many studies have found statins could increase the risk of developing diabetes.

‘Frank diabetes’

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 doctors have continued to prescribe them because statins’ benifts are more than  risk”. Nonetheless, the mechanism by which statins have this effect has been unclear.

glucose intolerance and astrovastatin 

1 In the study, published in February in the journalCell Metabolism, the researchers reported one mechanism through which statins could increase glucose intolerance, involving UDCA, a bile acid.

2 The team recruited 30 people with atorvastatin and 10 without and tracked their metabolism for four months.

🍁Astrovastatin -

drug used to lower the amount of cholesterol in the blood and to prevent stroke, heart attack, and angina (chest pain)

🍁They reported that the faecesमल of those taking atorvastatin had a reduced abundance of bacteria of the genusClostridium

Gut microbiome

 The gut microbiome is a community of bacteria in the gut in a symbiotic relationship with the body. 

Clostridium-deficient microbiome

The researchers found that the Clostridium-deficient microbiome inhibited enzymes called hydroxysteroid dehydrogenases and lowered UDCA.

They also verified an idea that “the decreased Clostridium-rich microbiota might influence bile acid synthesis and excretion and impair glucose metabolism” in a 12-week study of mice.

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Bile acid synthesis

 is a series of complex chemical reactions that occur in the liver. These reactions involve at least 17 enzymatic steps, each requiring a specialized protein called an enzyme. The reactions take place in specialized liver cells called hepatocytes

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To check the role of UDCA

 they recruited five participants on statins and administered 10-13 mg/kg (of body weight) of UDCA per day. 

After two months, they found the individuals’ HbA1C levels, among others, were “substantially decreased”.

They concluded that “UDCA restored impaired glucose homeostasis without limiting the lipid-lowering effect of statun.