Hyperlipidemia not only increase the incidence of cardiovascular disease, but also accelerate the progress of kidney disease, so the lipid-lowering therapy has certain protective effect to kidney. Large numbers of studies recently have shown that statins have a number of roles except lipid-lowering,including anti-inflammatory, immunomodulatory and directly inhibit mesangial cell proliferation and mesangial matrix increase, which with no doubt is of great significance to slow down the progress of kidney disease. It is well recognised that hyperlipidemia is the third major factor besides high blood pressure and albuminuria, which can promote the progression of kidney disease.
Nephrotic syndrome, diabetes kidney disease and end-stage renal disease patients often have lipid metabolic abnormalities involved, the latter not only cause arteriosclerosis, promote the kidney disease progress, but also can increase the incidence of cardiovascular complications. Lipid-lowering drugs like statins can significantly reduce the morbidity and mortality of cardiovascular events, whether with coronary or not, whatever basic lipid level is, statins can significantly reduce 23% of major vascular events. Which means statins is beneficial to improve the long-term prognosis of patients with ESRD. What’s more, statins is mainly excreted from liver and its renal excretion rate is less than 0.5%, which make statins relatively suitable for patients with kidney disease. In addition, studies have shown that it is safe and effective for patients with hypercholesterolemia nephrotic syndrome and hemodialysis to take statins constantly.
In view of all the above effects, statins can be widely used in many kinds of treatments in kidney disease, such as hyperplastic glomerulonephritis, ischemic renal disease, chronic kidney disease and polycystic kidney，etc.
