Wake Forest Baptist Joins Duke Medical For $90 Million Statin Study

Wake Forest Baptist Health is teaming with the Duke University Medical Center to study the benefits and risks of cholesterol-lowering drugs for elderly adults. 

The National Institute on Aging will provide $90 million over the next seven years to fund the research. It will be one of the largest study grants the Wake Forest School of Medicine has ever received. 

The goal is to determine whether cholesterol-lowering drugs known as statins can help prevent dementia and disability in elderly patients, as well as heart attacks and other cardiovascular-related deaths. 

The research will involve roughly 20,000 participants age 75 or older. According to a press release from the Wake Forest School of Medicine, the study is part of a major push by the federal government to include older patients in clinical research, while also making participation easier.

People in the study will not have to make office visits, and medications will be shipped directly to their homes.