A new study published in JAMA Internal Medicine has revealed a link between memory loss and statins, lipid-lowering drugs (LLDs).

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, approximately one in six adults in the United States have high cholesterol, a risk factor for chronic conditions like heart disease and diabetes. Doctors prescribe statins for millions of people.

Statins include atorvastatin, cerivastatin, fluvastatin, pravastatin and simvastatin, while nonstatin LLDs include cholestyramine, colestipol hydrochloride, colesevelam, clofibrate and gemfibrozil.

For the study, research team led by Dr. Brian L. Strom, chancellor of biomedical and health sciences at Rutgers University examined over 482,542 people who took statin medications and 482,543 individuals who weren't on any drugs.

The researchers also 26,484 included another group for comparison, people who were prescribed cholesterol-lowering drugs that were not statins.

Strom and his team found that both cholesterol-lowering drug groups showed short-term memory problems in the first 30 days after they started taking their medications compared to the one who were not on drugs.

Strom said, "Either it means that anything that lowers cholesterol has the same effect on short-term memory, which is not scientifically credible because you're dealing with drugs with completely different structures".

He added that detection biases might be the reason. It is a phenomenon in which patients prescribed a new drug. According to him, when patients are put on statins or any new drug, they're seen more often by their doctor, or they themselves are paying attention to whether anything is wrong.