This very popular pill is one of the worst things you can put in your body
Tipping point
From here on out, any medical professional who recommends statin drugs to healthy patients is either delusional or in denial (or borderline criminal!). Either way, it’s time to get over it.
I’m not talking about the known risk of statins raising blood sugar and promoting type 2 diabetes (although that alone is all the reason you need to avoid statins).
And I’m also not talking about the known risk of statins causing cognitive problems (usually referred to as “brain fog” to make it sound more cute than dangerous).
This time I’m returning to familiar territory: muscle pain.
But “pain” hardly begins to describe what’s going on here. Some of these cases of pain lead to fatalities. And if you’re like me, you’ll find it hard to believe who is at greatest risk of experiencing statin-related muscle pain and all the complications that can go with it.
Killer workouts
We’ve known for many years that statin use increases risk of muscle pain and fatigue.
Then, a few years ago, studies revealed that pain and fatigue are actually symptoms of something much more serious: muscle damage. As the alarming warning on the Lipitor website puts it, this damage “can lead to kidney problems including kidney failure.”
And just to be clear, kidney failure is not a condition you come back from — it’s the absolute end of the line.
But now the issue of muscle damage has taken another leap forward with this astonishing new warning: People who exercise are the ones who are most likely to experience statin-related muscle pain. And the more you exercise, the greater the pain, and the greater the damage.
According to a New York Times report, about 10 percent of statin users experience muscle ache, pain, or fatigue. But among people who exercise regularly, that percentage rises to 25 percent. And the rate is an astonishing 75 percent or more among competitive athletes.
Of course, the irony here is subtle as a sledgehammer, because regular exercise is one of the healthiest and most effective means of controlling cholesterol levels.
Most doctors who write a statin prescription will advise you to start getting daily exercise. But many patients who begin taking the pills will soon be feeling fatigued and unmotivated — unlikely to get a daily exercise regimen off the ground. And then, those who push themselves to exercise despite the fatigue, may actually cause greater harm to their muscles than if they just sat on the couch and watched TV.
This insidious pattern was recently confirmed in a French study where researchers compared muscle biopsies from mice given statins vs. mice who didn’t receive the drug.
In mice that weren’t exercised, oxidative stress (which is a measure of potential cell damage) was 60 percent higher among the animals that received a statin compared to those who didn’t.
In mice that were exercised on treadmills, muscle oxidative stress was more than 225 percent higher among the animals that received statins. In addition, the biopsies showed evidence of dysfunction in cell mitochondria, the mechanisms that generate a cell’s power.
One cardiologist told the Times that it appears that statins not only increase muscle damage during exercise, but afterwards as well. And what’s worse, the drug may actually interfere with the body’s ability to repair damaged muscles.
As with the increased risk of type 2 diabetes, and increased risk of cognitive problems, the worst part of this muscle damage issue is the fact that most people who use statins don’t need them at all.
Evidence shows that a small percentage of statin users who have known cardiovascular problems will benefit from a slightly reduced risk of fatal heart attack.
But for those who have high cholesterol and no other cardiovascular problems, statin benefits are virtually nonexistent.
It’s time for doctors everywhere to let go of their statin dependency and put it behind them. It’s done.
Sources:
“Do Statins Make It Tough to Exercise?” Gretchen Reynolds, New York Times, 3/14/12, well.blogs.nytimes.com
