The Dangers of Statin Drugs:, Part II

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The Dangers of Statin Drugs: What You Haven't Been

Told About Cholesterol-Lowering Medication, Part II

 

<< Previous

[ Part I, Part II ]

 

 

By Sally Fallon and Mary G. Enig, PhD

Originally printed at Weston A. Price

 

Neuropathy

 

Polyneuropathy, also known as peripheral neuropathy,

is characterized by weakness, tingling and pain in the

hands and feet as well as difficulty walking.

Researchers who studied 500,000 residents of Denmark,

about 9 percent of that country's population, found

that people who took statins were more likely to

develop polyneuropathy.10 Taking statins for one year

raised the risk of nerve damage by about 15

percent--about one case for every 2,200 patients. For

those who took statins for two or more years, the

additional risk rose to 26 percent.

 

According to the research of Dr. Golomb, nerve

problems are a common side effect from statin use;

patients who use statins for two or more years are at

a four to 14-fold increased risk of developing

idiopathic polyneuropathy compared to controls.11 She

reports that in many cases, patients told her they had

complained to their doctors about neurological

problems, only to be assured that their symptoms could

not be related to cholesterol-lowering medications.

 

The damage is often irreversible. People who take

large doses for a long time may be left with permanent

nerve damage, even after they stop taking the drug.

 

The question is, does widespread statin-induced

neuropathy make our elderly drivers (and even

not-so-elderly drivers) more accident prone? In July

2003, an 86-year-old driver with an excellent driving

record plowed into a farmers' market in Santa Monica,

California, killing 10 people. Several days later, a

most interesting letter from a Lake Oswego, Oregon

woman appeared in the Washington Post:12

 

" My husband, at age 68, backed into the garage and

stepped on the gas, wrecking a lot of stuff. He said

his foot slipped off the brake. He had health problems

and is on medication, including a cholesterol drug,

which is now known to cause problems with feeling in

one's legs.

 

" In my little community, older drivers have missed

a turn and taken out the end of a music store, the

double doors of the post office and the front of a

bakery. In Portland, a bank had to do without its

drive-up window for some time.

 

" It is easy to say that one's foot slipped, but

the problem could be lack of sensation. My husband's

sister-in-law thought her car was malfunctioning when

it refused to go when a light turned green, until she

looked down and saw that her foot was on the brake. I

have another friend who mentioned having no feeling in

her lower extremities. She thought about having her

car retrofitted with hand controls but opted for the

handicapped bus instead. "

 

Heart Failure

 

We are currently in the midst of a congestive heart

failure epidemic in the United States--while the

incidence of heart attack has declined slightly, an

increase in the number of heart failure cases has

outpaced these gains. Deaths attributed to heart

failure more than doubled from 1989 to 1997.13

(Statins were first given pre-market approval in

1987.) Interference with production of Co-Q10 by

statin drugs is the most likely explanation. The heart

is a muscle and it cannot work when deprived of

Co-Q10.

 

Cardiologist Peter Langsjoen studied 20 patients with

completely normal heart function. After six months on

a low dose of 20 mg of Lipitor a day, two-thirds of

the patients had abnormalities in the heart's filling

phase, when the muscle fills with blood. According to

Langsjoen, this malfunction is due to Co-Q10

depletion.

 

Without Co-Q10, the cell's mitochondria are inhibited

from producing energy, leading to muscle pain and

weakness. The heart is especially susceptible because

it uses so much energy.14

 

Co-Q10 depletion becomes more and more of a problem as

the pharmaceutical industry encourages doctors to

lower cholesterol levels in their patients by greater

and greater amounts. Fifteen animal studies in six

different animal species have documented

statin-induced Co-Q10 depletion leading to decreased

ATP production, increased injury from heart failure,

skeletal muscle injury and increased mortality. Of the

nine controlled trials on statin-induced Co-Q10

depletion in humans, eight showed significant Co-Q10

depletion leading to decline in left ventricular

function and biochemical imbalances.15

 

Yet virtually all patients with heart failure are put

on statin drugs, even if their cholesterol is already

low. Of interest is a recent study indicating that

patients with chronic heart failure benefit from

having high levels of cholesterol rather than low.

Researchers in Hull, UK followed 114 heart failure

patients for at least 12 months.16 Survival was 78

percent at 12 months and 56 percent at 36 months.

 

They found that for every point of decrease in serum

cholesterol, there was a 36 percent increase in the

risk of death within three years.

 

Dizziness

 

Dizziness is commonly associated with statin use,

possibly due to pressure-lowering effects. One woman

reported dizziness one half hour after taking

Pravachol.17 When she stopped taking it, the dizziness

cleared up. Blood pressure lowering has been reported

with several statins in published studies. According

to Dr. Golumb, who notes that dizziness is a common

adverse effect, the elderly may be particularly

sensitive to drops in blood pressure.18

 

Cognitive Impairment

 

The November 2003 issue of Smart Money19 describes the

case of Mike Hope, owner of a successful

ophthalmologic supply company:

 

" There's an awkward silence when you ask Mike Hope

his age. He doesn't change the subject or stammer, or

make a silly joke about how he stopped counting at 21.

He simply doesn't remember. Ten seconds pass. Then 20.

Finally an answer comes to him. 'I'm 56,' he says.

Close, but not quite. 'I will be 56 this year.' Later,

if you happen to ask him about the book he's reading,

you'll hit another roadblock. He can't recall the

title, the author or the plot. "

 

Statin use since 1998 has caused his speech and memory

to fade. He was forced to close his business and went

on Social Security 10 years early. Things improved

when he discontinued Lipitor in 2002, but he is far

from complete recovery--he still cannot sustain a

conversation. What Lipitor did was turn Mike Hope into

an old man when he was in the prime of life.

 

Cases like Mike's have shown up in the medical

literature as well. An article in Pharmacotherapy,

December 2003, for example, reports two cases of

cognitive impairment associated with Lipitor and

Zocor.20 Both patients suffered progressive cognitive

decline that reversed completely within a month after

discontinuation of the statins. A study conducted at

the University of Pittsburgh showed that patients

treated with statins for six months compared poorly

with patients on a placebo in solving complex mazes,

psychomotor skills and memory tests.21

 

Dr. Golomb has found that 15 percent of statin

patients develop some cognitive side effects.22 The

most harrowing involve global transient

amnesia--complete memory loss for a brief or lengthy

period--described by former astronaut Duane Graveline

in his book Lipitor: Thief of Memory.23 Sufferers

report baffling incidents involving complete loss of

memory--arriving at a store and not remembering why

they are there, unable to remember their name or the

names of their loved ones, unable to find their way

home in the car.

 

These episodes occur suddenly and disappear just as

suddenly. Graveline points out that we are all at risk

when the general public is taking statins--do you want

to be in an airplane when your pilot develops

statin-induced amnesia?

 

While the pharmaceutical industry denies that statins

can cause amnesia, memory loss has shown up in several

statin trials. In a trial involving 2,502 subjects,

amnesia occurred in seven receiving Lipitor; amnesia

also occurred in two of 742 subjects during

comparative trials with other statins. In addition,

" abnormal thinking " was reported in four of the 2,502

clinical trial subjects.24 The total recorded side

effects was therefore 0.5 percent; a figure that

likely under-represents the true frequency since

memory loss was not specifically studied in these

trials.

 

Cancer

 

In every study with rodents to date, statins have

caused cancer.25 Why have we not seen such a dramatic

correlation in human studies? Because cancer takes a

long time to develop and most of the statin trials do

not go on longer than two or three years. Still, in

one trial, the CARE trial, breast cancer rates of

those taking a statin went up 1500 percent.26 In the

Heart Protection Study, non-melanoma skin cancer

occurred in 243 patients treated with simvastatin

compared with 202 cases in the control group.27

 

Manufacturers of statin drugs have recognized the fact

that statins depress the immune system, an effect that

can lead to cancer and infectious disease,

recommending statin use for inflammatory arthritis and

as an immune suppressor for transplant patients.28

 

Pancreatic Rot

 

The medical literature contains several reports of

pancreatitis in patients taking statins. One paper

describes the case of a 49-year-old woman who was

admitted to the hospital with diarrhea and septic

shock one month after beginning treatment with

lovastatin.29

 

She died after prolonged hospitalization; the cause of

death was necrotizing pancreatitis. Her doctors noted

that the patient had no evidence of common risk

factors for acute pancreatitis, such as biliary tract

disease or alcohol use. " Prescribers of statins

(particularly simvastatin and lovastatin) should take

into account the possibility of acute pancreatitis in

patients who develop abdominal pain within the first

weeks of treatment with these drugs, " they warned.

 

Depression

 

Numerous studies have linked low cholesterol with

depression. One of the most recent found that women

with low cholesterol are twice as likely to suffer

from depression and anxiety. Researchers from Duke

University Medical Center carried out personality

trait measurements on 121 young women aged 18 to 27.30

They found that 39 percent of the women with low

cholesterol levels scored high on personality traits

that signaled proneness to depression, compared to 19

percent of women with normal or high levels of

cholesterol.

 

In addition, one in three of the women with low

cholesterol levels scored high on anxiety indicators,

compared to 21 percent with normal levels. Yet the

author of the study, Dr. Edward Suarez, cautioned

women with low cholesterol against eating " foods such

as cream cakes " to raise cholesterol, warning that

these types of food " can cause heart disease. " In

previous studies on men, Dr. Suarez found that men who

lower their cholesterol levels with medication have

increased rates of suicide and violent death, leading

the researchers to theorize " that low cholesterol

levels were causing mood disturbances. "

 

How many elderly statin-takers eke through their

golden years feeling miserable and depressed, when

they should be enjoying their grandchildren and

looking back with pride on their accomplishments? But

that is the new dogma--you may have a long life as

long as it is experienced as a vale of tears.

 

Any Benefits?

 

Most doctors are convinced--and seek to convince their

patients--that the benefits of statin drugs far

outweigh the side effects. They can cite a number of

studies in which statin use has lowered the number of

coronary deaths compared to controls. But as Dr.

Ravnskov has pointed out in his book The Cholesterol

Myths,31 the results of the major studies up to the

year 2000--the 4S, WOSCOPS, CARE, AFCAPS and LIPID

studies--generally showed only small differences and

these differences were often statistically

insignificant and independent of the amount of

cholesterol lowering achieved.

 

In two studies, EXCEL, and FACAPT/TexCAPS, more deaths

occurred in the treatment group compared to controls.

Dr. Ravnskov's 1992 meta-analysis of 26 controlled

cholesterol-lowering trials found an equal number of

cardiovascular deaths in the treatment and control

groups and a greater number of total deaths in the

treatment groups.32 An analysis of all the big

controlled trials reported before 2000 found that

long-term use of statins for primary prevention of

heart disase produced a 1 percent greater risk of

death over 10 years compared to a placebo.33

 

Recently published studies do not provide any more

justification for the current campaign to put as many

people as possible on statin drugs.

 

Stay tuned for Part III in the next issue of the

newsletter.

 

References

<< Previous

[ Part I, Part II ]

 

 

Related Articles:

 

The Truth About Cholesterol-Lowering Drugs

(Statins), Cholesterol, and Health

 

Crestor and Other Statins: Are They Really Worth

the Risk?

 

Half of Population Will be Taking Statins

 

Statins - Is the Danger is the Dose?