Permananet Side Effects from Statin Drugs

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Permananet Side Effects from Statin Drugs

http://www.spacedoc.net/statins_permanent_side_effects.html

 

I was still in practice, twenty years ago, when lovastatin, the first statin

drug, became available for use by we primary care physicians.

 

We learned to expect liver inflammation and occasional muscle aches and

pains. With the dosages used at that time and with a relatively small number of

patients on the early statins, the side effect issue impressed me as being

acceptable. This is no longer true.

 

Today, with more potent drugs, millions of people taking them and doses

triple and quadruple those of the past, our side effect profile has radically

changed. Now, cognitive damage, emotional and behavioral change, neuropathies

and

even neuro-degenerative damage are increasingly recognized as associated with

statin drug use. But there is something even more perverse – the element of

permanence of some of these consequences.

 

The pharmaceutical industry has been quick to add such conditions as

neuropathy and amnesia to their long list of “disclaimers†in their drug

reference

information. Yes, within the past six years, after my own cognitive reactions to

statins in the prevailing climate of complete physician denial, drug

companies have belatedly added cognitive damage but not one word about permanent

cognitive damage. And the same for neuromuscular – yes, most of the drug

companies

now admit that peripheral neuropathy may be a consequence of statin use but

have never mentioned it might be disabling, crippling or permanent. The

deliberate pattern of gross misrepresentation and disinformation of statin drug

side

effects to physicians who prescribe these drugs has created a climate where

many physicians will summarily dismiss patient claims of damage as impossible,

thereby placing them in harm’s way.

The first evidence of permanence came from reports of cognitive problems

associated with statin use. Michael Hope was one of the first to receive

widespread media attention – a former CEO reduced to unemployable status due

to

persistent loss of short-term memory. Today, four years after the onset, Michael

is

still grossly impaired. He is one of many hundreds who have persistent

cognitive deficits long after stopping their statin.

 

Next came reports of muscle aches and pains brought on by statin drugs that

persisted and even worsened despite promptly stopping the statin. Two astronaut

friends of mine, having no history of muscle problems, experienced muscle

pains shortly after their statin was started for mild hypercholesterolemia. Much

to their dismay these pains have persisted years after they stopped the

offending drug. They are but two of thousands of patients in this growing

subgroup

of people with persistent and apparently permanent muscle symptoms seemingly

triggered by statin drug use. Current research indicates that many of these have

an unsuspected genetic predisposition. Some of these cases respond to CoQ10,

many do not.

 

Another growing reality is that of peripheral neuropathy, particularly

unresponsive to treatment, coming on soon after statin therapy is initiated.

Once

this occurs, not only does it seems to be permanent but tends to worsen in many

patients. Hundreds of victims are incapacitated, even crippled by this

unfortunate side effect, seemingly related to alterations in CoQ10 availability

brought on by statin drug interference with the mevalonate pathway.

 

Mevalonate pathway disruption also seems to be the mechanism of action for

another type of neurological disaster associated with statin use, that of

neurodegenerative disease onset shortly after the start of treatment. Only in

the

past few years have we learned of the unfortunate tendency of statins to promote

the tau protein formation while inhibiting the usual sequence of biochemical

reactions in the mevalonate pathway. Tau protein is now known to promote the

formation of neuro-fibrillatory tangles with secondary neuronal damage,

offering a possible explanation for the unusual number of cases we are seeing

of

amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, Parkinsonism, frontal lobe dementia and

Alzheimers’

disease and other neurodegenerative conditions shortly after statins are

started. This suggests that these diseases are somehow being triggered by

statins. Need I add that these diseases are both permanent and progressive.

 

Not only have statin drug companies failed to adequately warn prescribing

physicians of permanent cognitive loss associated with statin use, they have

failed to warn about permanent neuromuscular and neurodegenerative consequences.

Thousands of unsuspecting patients have become victims and in most of these

cases their doctors, having had no advance warning from the pharmaceutical

industry, have tended to disregard patient complaints, offering almost any

explanation other than the correct one. Unfortunately, as these damage claims

come to

the attention of the courts many MDs will be forced to share liability with the

drug companies. On hearing hundreds of patient complaints about doctor rebuff

on this subject of statin side effects, I well recall the words of Doctor

Ellsworth Amidon, my professor of medicine at Vermont College of Medicine, way

too many years ago: “Listen well to the words of the patient, my young

doctors,

for they are telling you the diagnosis.â€

 

Duane Graveline MD MPH