How do statins cause certain muscles t... - Cholesterol Support
How do statins cause certain muscles to ache; are they responsible for more lactic acid buildup; do they damage muscle tissue in any way?
Hi Mish,
All the research I have done on this tells me that myopathy is caused by the Co Q10 disruption to high energy cells such as muscles. Q10 is needed to produce ATP which is like the fuel in a car. Conversion of ATP to ADP (adenosine di phosphate) produces the energy that cells need to work.
Sorry if this is "biology for dummies" but it is the only way I can understand it.
I have also read that some people may have a genetic disposition to myopathies and that women with "small frames" suffer more side effects from statins.
Really serious muscle damage can be measured by regular CK checks.
Thanks, Aliwally, for your helpful answer. I am a small-framed woman and have had real problems tolerating the four statins I've tried over ten years. I've given up the statins once again and been taking CoQ10 150mg daily for some months now (along with magnesium, omega3 etc) to try combat the onset of fibromyalgia which I believe was caused -in part- by the last lot of statins I was on. I am finding some improvement, but it's still an ongoing, uphill struggle (necessitating many difficult lifestyle changes) that I'm loathe to try the last two statins I've not subjected myself to yet!
I thought the whole question of statins and women had be solved in that statins do not provide any benefit to women with regard to All-Cause mortality? Perhaps I'm wrong? Wasn't it the Heart Protection Study that showed this? And didn't the 4S study show the same thing for total mortality in women?
Yes, according to Dr Malcolm Kendrick (OK I know he's biased ) the HPS showed "the total mortality for women did not reach significance and therefore was not published". Didn't the HPS show however that there were less cardiac "events" in the treated group, will look it up.
Two years down the line, I still find it difficult to have a balanced view about statins, bit like marmite really.
Just looked up the figures for HPS .This is from The European Journal of Heart Failure which gives an update of all statin trials. Total mortality over 5 years was reduced by 1.7% and over one year by 0.3% in the statin treated group and all cardiac events by 5.5% over 5 years and 1.1% annually.
These, I think, were people at high risk because of previous heart disease but did not have high cholesterol.
Draw your own conclusions!
A lot depends how figures are presented I think. It also seems to me that people either fall into the for or against camp with statins. Having said that anybody with an inherited form automatically goes to the top of the risk class.
The most helpful advice I read was "If your're still sitting on the fence on statins stay there, as there is much more information coming your way".
Sometimes I wish I'd never heard of the C word!
If you go to lipidsonline.org the figures are better. There were 19.8% major events in the statin treated group and 25.2% in the placebo, I think over the whole 5 years.
5 years of statin treatment prevents 100 in 1000 people with a previous MI getting another "event" and 70 in 1000 with diabetes
.
25% of the group were women and all had risk factors.
Trouble is now that it is considered "unethical" not to treat people with high cholesterol with statins so you couldn't do a trial only with people with extremely raised LDL and not give them statins.
