{"id":189,"date":"2011-12-15T14:09:08","date_gmt":"2011-12-15T14:09:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/impact-r.com\/?p=189"},"modified":"2011-12-15T14:10:48","modified_gmt":"2011-12-15T14:10:48","slug":"statins-platelets-and-impact-r","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/impact-r.com\/?p=189","title":{"rendered":"Statins, Platelets and Impact-R"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Statins are a class of drugs that lower blood cholesterol by inhibiting the enzyme HMG-CoA reductase. This enzyme, found in the liver, plays an important role in the production of cholesterol. It reduces HMG-CoA to mevalonate, and this conversion is the rate-limiting step in cholesterol biosynthesis.<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_192\" style=\"width: 240px\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\"><a href=\"https:\/\/impact-r.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/12\/HMG-CoA_reductase_pathway.png\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-192\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-192\" src=\"https:\/\/impact-r.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/12\/HMG-CoA_reductase_pathway-230x300.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"230\" height=\"300\" srcset=\"https:\/\/impact-r.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/12\/HMG-CoA_reductase_pathway-230x300.png 230w, https:\/\/impact-r.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/12\/HMG-CoA_reductase_pathway.png 280w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 230px) 100vw, 230px\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-192\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">HMG-CoA reductase pathway and drugs that inhibit the various steps (in red).<\/p><\/div>\n<p>Statins act by competitive inhibition of HMG-CoA reductase since the statins are molecularly similar to HMG-CoA. Statins are used to lower cholesterol levels in patients who have tried diet and lifestyle modifications but still have high levels of cholesterol.<\/p>\n<p>Medical use of statins is to decrease mortality in patients with preexisting cardiovascular disease and those who are high-risk for developing heart disease. Researchers propose four mechanisms for reduced cardiovascular events in patients taking statins:<\/p>\n<ol>\n<li>Improve endothelial function<\/li>\n<li>Modulate inflammatory responses<\/li>\n<li>Maintain plaque stability (in atheromas)<\/li>\n<li>Prevent thrombus formation<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<p>It is the 4th mechanism that is the subject of a study by Matetzky, et.al., which examined the effects of statins on platelet adhesion and aggregation. This study utilized the <a href=\"https:\/\/impact-r.com\/impact-r-laboratory-platelet-function-cone-and-plate-analyser\/\" target=\"_blank\">IMPACT-R<\/a> to determine aggregate size and surface coverage of platelets taken from hypercholesterolemic and STEMI (ST-elevation myocardial infarction) patients treated with statins as compared to patients not treated with statins. An abstract of the study can be found <a href=\"http:\/\/www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov\/pubmed\/21171935\" target=\"_blank\">here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Statins are a class of drugs that lower blood cholesterol by inhibiting the enzyme HMG-CoA reductase. This enzyme, found in the liver, plays an important role in the production of cholesterol. It reduces HMG-CoA to mevalonate, and this conversion is the rate-limiting step in cholesterol biosynthesis. Statins act by competitive inhibition of HMG-CoA reductase since [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[59,20],"tags":[81,84,85,86,87,70,89,83,82,80,88],"class_list":["post-189","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-disorders-use-of-impact-r-in-research","category-usage-of-impact-r","tag-atheroma","tag-cholesterol","tag-hmg-coa","tag-hmg-coa-reductase","tag-hypercholesterolemia","tag-impact-r","tag-myocardial-infarction","tag-platelet-adhesion","tag-platelet-aggregation","tag-statins","tag-stemi"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/impact-r.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/189","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/impact-r.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/impact-r.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/impact-r.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/impact-r.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=189"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/impact-r.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/189\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":196,"href":"https:\/\/impact-r.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/189\/revisions\/196"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/impact-r.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=189"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/impact-r.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=189"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/impact-r.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=189"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}