Bruce Willis: What triggers aphasia, what research reveals

Actor Bruce Willis was diagnosed with aphasia in 2022, which ended his acting career and drew attention to this condition.

In 2023, his diagnosis was updated to frontotemporal dementia (FTD), a neurodegenerative disease often presenting with aphasia as a prominent symptom.

Aphasia involves a complete loss of speech and comprehension abilities, while dysphasia only involves moderate language impairments.

Many health professionals and researchers use these terms interchangeably to refer to full and partial disruptions of language abilities.

Bruce Willis currently lives in a separate, one-story house with a full-time care team to manage his frontotemporal dementia (FTD), as per The Independent.

This came after his wife, Emma Heming Willis, made the difficult decision to move him to this specialised home, which provides him with the necessary support while allowing his daughters to maintain a sense of normalcy in their own lives through regular visits. 

He has a full-time care team that provides him with 24/7 support.

While he lives separately, his wife and daughters visit him frequently for meals and other family time.

Health status: He is mobile and in good overall health, but his brain is deteriorating due to his FTD diagnosis, affecting his ability to communicate. 

Aphasia is a symptom of FTD, and in many cases, it is the primary symptom. Primary Progressive Aphasia (PPA) is a specific subtype of FTD where the initial symptoms are language-related, affecting a person's ability to speak, write, read, and understand language. 

Cholesterol-lowering statins, the world’s leading class of medications for managing high cholesterol, have been linked to rare but alarming side effects — including aphasia.

On February 16, 2023, when Willis's family announced that he had been diagnosed with FTD, Dr Gregg Day, a neurologist at the Mayo Clinic, explained that the symptoms include difficulties with language and comprehension, and misinterpretation of instructions.

In a statement, the family said that Willis's condition had progressed and that "challenges with communication are just one symptom of the disease".

In a recent post on X, Dr. Bryan Ardis, a licensed chiropractor, acupuncturist, and nutritionist and considered one of the most influential doctors in alternative medicine, was quoted as saying that the same condition, aphasia, has affected actor Bruce Willis and is now a documented complication of statin use.

In 2012, the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) mandated warnings on all statin drug labels after post-marketing reports showed "cognitive side-effects".

These included:

These are issues classified under "aphasia" and "dysphasia".

According to the FDA, such cognitive effects “have been reported for all statins” and “are reversible upon statin discontinuation, with variable times to symptom onset of 1 day to 1 year.

Symptom resolution was achieved by stopping the statin with a median time frame of 3 weeks”. ​

Despite the label change, patients are often not directly warned by their healthcare providers about these neurological risks, according to a study.

The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) announced that new warnings would be added to statin drug labels indicating that statins may cause hyperglycaemia (high blood sugar), which can lead to type II diabetes mellitus, and may also cause memory loss.

Statins are oral medications used to lower total cholesterol and increase HDL (“good”) cholesterol levels.

They work by inhibiting an enzyme called HMG-CoA Reductase, which decreases cholesterol production and increases LDL (“bad”) cholesterol clearance from the bloodstream.

They include synthetic (atorvastatin, rosuvastatin) and fermentation-derived (lovastatin, pravastatin, simvastatin) compounds.

They act by blocking the liver enzyme HMG-CoA reductase, a critical catalyst in cholesterol biosynthesis.

While this reduces heart disease risk, it also known to affect cholesterol’s vital role in brain health — cholesterol is crucial for neuron function, myelin sheath integrity, and serves as a major brain component. ​

Statins inhibit HMG-CoA Reductase, an enzyme necessary for producing mevalonic acid — a precursor to cholesterol. This leads to reduced cholesterol synthesis in the liver and increased uptake of cholesterol from the bloodstream, lowering overall LDL levels.

Some patients have reported memory loss and confusion while taking statins. According to the FDA, these cognitive effects are "generally rare" and reversible once the medication is discontinued.

No. The FDA emphasises that the benefits of statins for most patients outweigh these potential risks. The agency advises patients not to stop taking statins without consulting their healthcare provider.

Statin-induced cholesterol restriction can also lead to muscle pain, mitochondrial dysfunction (via CoQ10 depletion), hormonal deficiencies, increased diabetes risk, and even associations with cognitive impairment and neurodegenerative diseases.

The FDA’s safety update noted both memory impairment and confusion as reversible, but robust studies continue to debate the scope and frequency of these cases.

Current statins include rosuvastatin (Crestor), atorvastatin (Lipitor), simvastatin (Zocor), fluvastatin (Lescol), lovastatin (Mevacor/Altoprev), pitavastatin (Livalo), and pravastatin (Pravachol). ​

The global statin market reflects their ongoing popularity, valued at about $17.25 billion in 2025, projected to reach nearly $25 billion by 2032 as cardiovascular diseases rise worldwide, as per Coherent Market Insights.

The FDA's mandatory warnings came following studies showing correlation between statin use and aphasia.

One such study, published in 2013 in the journal Circulation by Frances M. Sahebzamani, Cindy L. Munro, Oscar C. Marroquin, David M. Diamond, and Kevin E. Kip critically examined the FDA’s "black box" warning on statins and cognitive dysfunction.

Using publicly available data from the FDA Adverse Event Reporting System (AERS), they analysed cognitive dysfunction cases by statin type, specifically comparing lipophilic (fat-soluble) and hydrophilic (water-soluble) statins. Lipophilic statins are known to cross the blood-brain barrier more readily than hydrophilic types.

Their analysis revealed that lipophilic statins, especially atorvastatin and simvastatin, were associated with a significantly higher rate of reported cognitive side effects.

In contrast, hydrophilic statins (such as pravastatin and rosuvastatin) were associated with much lower PRRs, suggesting a lower risk for cognitive dysfunction.

The study concluded that not all statins confer the same risk for cognitive side effects.

So while statins still offer important health benefits for at-risk individuals, their cognitive and neurological side effects, such as aphasia, require greater patient education and routine monitoring to prevent severe outcomes and improve medication safety.