Little and his research team found that during the study period, heart failure patients on statin therapy had a risk of death that was 22 percent lower than the patients receiving the other drugs. Even after adjusting for other factors that could have affected the results, such as hypertension or cardiovascular disease, the heart failure patients on statins still fared better.

Little writes that the improved survival rates in the study might be due to the known beneficial effects of statins in patients with coronary artery disease. Whether diagnosed or not, coronary artery disease is quite common in the elderly population. Too, because diabetes and impaired kidney function are also common in patients with diastolic failure, statins may improve the outcome of these conditions, possibly explaining some of the benefits observed by his team with statins in diastolic heart failure.

"Because the patients were not randomized to which therapy they received, this is not a definitive study," said Little. "However, it certainly suggests that it's worth looking into using statins to treat patients with diastolic heart failure."