Heart Drugs Are Huge, but New Harms Emerge
Statins' side-effects show what you don't feel might hurt you.
New study shows Lipitor among potentially-harmful statins.
It's a hot summer and time to relax. With most of us lucky to take some time to chill out, life couldn't feel better. Right?
Well, not so fast. New research adds more heft to that old adage: If you are feeling fine, you just haven't had enough tests.
A study published last month in the Canadian Medical Association Journal found that muscle-weakening, one of the most common adverse effects related to drugs to lower cholesterol (statins like Crestor, Lipitor or Zocor) can be found in patients who have no apparent symptoms.
The fact that some patients taking statins experience muscle pain or cramps is not exactly groundbreaking news. If you are taking these drugs and find you have trouble getting out of a chair without arm support you may be among the 10 to 15 per cent of the statin-consuming population who experience some kind of muscle weakness or muscle pain. It's a common possible reaction to the drug.
But in this research study of 83 patients, Swiss researchers decided to try to see if they could actually measure the effects of the drugs by doing muscle biopsies and putting tissue samples under an electron microscope to look for damage. They found that about 60 per cent of the patients who complained of sore muscles while taking statins had evidence of structural muscle damage. Importantly, many of these patients had a normal blood test that doctors order if they suspect patients are experiencing muscle damage.
In other words, the test for muscle damage does not prove you don't have muscle damage. Furthermore, muscle damage was found in about five per cent of patients taking statins who had no symptoms whatsoever.
For many, damage not reversible
Still feeling good on your cholesterol-lowering drug? And if you're not, and the drug is making you feel weak, you can just stop taking it, right? Well, one of the problems that this research revealed is that the muscle damage being done is not readily reversible and it can persist in patients who stop the drug for four months or even longer.
As well, if you're also taking other prescriptions, you may unknowingly be making the muscle weakening worse. Drugs like the fibrates, warfarin, macrolid antibiotics, antifungal agents and drugs that suppress the immune system can make the muscle-related weakening by statins worse.
So why is this significant? And furthermore, why should I ruin your summer at the beach by reminding you of dangers that you can't feel and you didn't even know exist?
It's because, statistically speaking, everyone reading The Tyee will either be on a statin themselves or be related to someone who is. Statins are the most widely consumed class of prescription drugs on the planet. The world's patients ate $14 billion worth of Lipitor -- the market-leading statin drug -- last year. No other drug in the history of the world comes even close to this level of consumption.
Odds that might surprise you
Now you might think that since statins reduce your risk of a heart attack or stroke, they're likely worth a bit of muscle pain. After having read the important studies of cholesterol-lowering drugs, here's what I conclude: If you're a man who has had a heart attack and thus at high risk of having another one, 20 men like you would have to take a statin for five years for only one of you to benefit.
Want to stop taking a potentially unhelpful drug that has unpleasant side effects? You might find it hard to be challenging your physician, but you might want to try out the line my mother uses: "I stopped taking that drug because it makes me feel crappy." Seems to work for her.
In any event, the beach beckons. If you're not feeling fine you might want to ask your physician: Is it possible that how I feel may be linked to the drugs I am swallowing?
If you're feeling fine, you either have nothing to worry about, or you may be one of those unlucky patients whose drug regime is mounting a sneak attack on your hind quarters. In which case, you might want to reconsider and decide that summer is as good a time as any for a drug holiday. ![]()



15
Login or register to post comments
alive
2 years ago
Thanks
WOW!
So much for just accepting a doctors advice.
Thank you for this article, I am going to check my prescriptions and see if perhaps I would be better off not taking them.
cocean
2 years ago
Patients asking questions
I always ask questions of doctors who are treating me, but have noticed a decided unwillingness to provide answers and a corresponding, defensive attitude as though I am questioning their expertise - which sometimes I may be, but usually it's curiosity driving me.
During a visit to my GP several years ago, she was writing out a prescription for a drug to treat a skin condition. I asked her: "What's the active ingredient in that?" She answered: "I don't know."
Fine, I thought, with a mental shrug of the shoulders, she'll find out. I anticipated that she'd take down from the bookshelf in front of her the Physician's Drug Handbook and look up the drug.
She didn't. Apparently, I was to take on faith that, regardless of her lack of knowledge or curiosity to fill an obvious gap, she knew what was good for me.
Soon after, I stopped being her patient.
ReeferMadness
2 years ago
The system is sick
Our health system has problems, no doubt about it and the sickest part of the system is the drug-pushing part. Big pharmaceuticals are raking in billions that statistically help people but might be of no particular benefit (and possibly of great harm) to YOU.
The second part to this problem is that people are abandoning the entire system in search of practitioners they find on the web who just might be quacks.
Katatak
2 years ago
There's better solutions than pills...
I think ReeferMadness sums things up pretty accurately re. the problem with pharmaceutical companies.
It would be nice if studies like this one by the CMA Journal encouraged people to seek good health and well-being through healthy diets and physical activity rather than going for quick, pill-popping patch jobs that cause more damage than we know of. I would strongly encourage people to visit some kind of naturalpath before jumping on the advice of traditional doctors.
Booker
2 years ago
How it feels
"I stopped taking that drug because it makes me feel crappy."
That's pretty good rule of thumb!
news
2 years ago
A natural alternative to Statin Drugs
There are natural alternatives to popping these dangerous drugs to improving cardiovascular health.
Always ensure that you eat healthy and exercise. However, nutrition in even with the healthiest foods still is missing necessary nutrients, at the quality and quality needed to make a difference in heart health.
I know of a company the supplies natural products which is safer,effective and scientifically validated to significantly help reduce cholesterol, help reduce blood pressure, help reduce low density lipids, helps prevent LDL ("bad") cholesterol oxidation, promotes healthy blood platelet activity and nourishes your blood vessels.
Articles have been published in the Journal of the American Medical Association, 2003; American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, 2000; GISSI Study, 2002 and Circulation, 2001 all supporting these claims.
The best part is that it is very economically priced!
If you need more information email
madmosaic
2 years ago
Statins
My 93 year old father was a pharmacist.
He has survived this long by never taking any prescription medications. He still takes nothing.
At the age of 89 he took something to reduce the speed of the onset of Alzheimer's. He said it made him feel crappy so he quit.
He's fine!
Hmmmm, maybe he is onto something.
offended
2 years ago
Generalizations from posters
about those with heart disease are really offensive for this reason; it's not always about one's diet.
Really. Check the literature.
alive
2 years ago
about lifestyles
When some people live a long life it can often be attributed to their attitude!
Only too many people retire and have no interests to keep them going and no stamina to get out of bed.
Being too stubborn to seek help when needed is another factor!
I maintain a healthy lifestyle and was surprised that when having chestpains I was diagnosed and operated on for a multiple bypass.
It is all too esay to shrug off minor discomforts!
Camero409
2 years ago
Satins and big pharma.
If you really want the lowdown on prescription drugs go to www.hisbalimore.com and subscribe to their newsletter. Also subscribe the Dr. Douglas report at www.douglasreport.com and others like www.healthrevelations.com. These are qualified people who have a lot of valuable informaiton to impart to us all regarding the true motives behind big pharma.
wayfarer
2 years ago
pharmaceutical industrial complex
Informative and illuminating. Thanks to Alan Cassels for sharing.
I was surprised last year by the casual, whimsical tone with which my GP recommended I go on these meds because I met certain criteria. I disputed his advice, and eventually he relented, went and got a sheet listing a diet and foods that, if I ate consistently, would essentially have the same effect as the drug - i.e., lower my cholesteral.
At least with this drug, it does attempt to address an actual, verifiable physical issue. Where we've really crossed the Rubicon is in the murky field of drug therapy and psychiatry. The disease model approach to psychiatry in North America has family doctors giving out powerful drugs like candy - for supposed "diseases" that can't even be proven to exist! Giving infants powerful cocaine-like stimulants for over-activity, or giving children anti-psychotics for exhibiting symptoms of depression (childhood bipolar) - this is one of the great crimes of medical malpractise of our era, and big-pharma underlies it all.
I hope to see more from Cassels on this topic.
Skywalker
2 years ago
Yes, more from Cassels on this subject.
I have been taking Lipitor for a decade and the symptoms regarding the weakening of muscle tissue are all noticed. People tend to excuse them as something that happens as you get older but they are far more significant than just the normal aging process.
Stephen Rees
2 years ago
Statins cost a lot too
My last batch of Lipitor cost me $100 - for 3 months supply. If you have a drug plan through your employer this may be of no concern. I have yet to see "fair Pharmacare" kick in - and August is nearly over. I also found that a more active life style than I achieve now and large doses of niacin (vitamin B3) was more effective than any statin not just at lowering cholesterol but getting a better LDL/HDL ratio. But then since vitamins are both cheap and generic, no big pharma company rep is pushing them to the GPs.
And some people think coenzyme Q10 can help with the muscle thing - it was recently mentioned on "Good Morning America"
SCI
2 years ago
more of statins' drawbacks
Statins also can cause cognitive changes which are reversible when the drug is stopped. As well, statins can cause severe, intractable flares of lupus; no one knows why they don't respond to treatment.
And for all those celiacs out there, lipitor is not gluten-free.
RickW
2 years ago
With respect to reefermadness:
http://www.orthomolecular.org/resources/omns/v01n10.shtml
Niacin/Vitamin C combination to lower cholesterol works! First hand experience!
With lower LDL, the ones that tend to block arteries, the heart doesn't have to work so hard pumping blood.