Stress ossidativo associato ad un incremento dei livelli di taurina in pazienti con IRC sottoposti a terapia con statine

Patients with chronic kidney (CKD) disease on stage 3 and 4 show a high CV morbidity and mortality. No traditional risk factors such as oxidative stress and inflammation are prevalent in this population. Lipid-lowering therapy has been reported to reduce several OS markers in hypercholesterolemia. We have investigated the effect of drugs on OS and plasma taurine (Tau), a sulfur amino acid with a marked antioxidant effect. We enrolled 30 CKD patients randomized to receive 3 different hypolipidemic regimens for 12 months: simvastatin alone (40 mg/day) or ezetimibe/simvastatin (Eze/Sim) combined therapy (10/20 or 10/40 mg/day. Tau concentration significantly increased throughout the therapy and the rise was more striking for the group with the administration of eze/sim 10/40 mg/day (31.6% after 1 year of therapy). A significant decrease of both MDA and All/UA ratio was observed during therapy for all patients with a more pronounced effect in patients treated with Eze/Sim 10/40 mg/day (-26% MDA and -28% All/UA ratio). Besides, an increase of reduced thiols with a greater effect was observed in subjects treated with Eze/Sim 10/40 mg/day (24.7%). We demonstrated that oxidative stress improvement during therapy was correlated with increased Tau levels. We hypothesize that Tau may be responsible for the oxidative stress improvement observed during lipid-lowering treatment through the reduction of superoxide anion production at the respiratory chain activity level.