Dean's (Reinke) Stroke Musings - Statins

(SSTattler: Copying Dean's Reinke comments in  Saturdays News - April 14th / 2012. 
I added a bit of relevant text.  Look at Dean's Stroke Musing - great site).

Dean's Stroke Musing

The risks: All these should be told you by your doctor.

Do Statins Make It Tough to Exercise?
For years, physicians and scientists have been aware that statins, the most widely prescribed drugs in the world, can cause muscle aches and fatigue in some patients. What many people don’t know is that these side effects are especially pronounced in people who exercise.

To learn more about the effect statins have on exercising muscles, scientists in Strasbourg, France, recently gave the cholesterol-lowering drug Lipitor to a group of rats for two weeks, while a separate control group was not medicated. Some of the rats from both groups ran on little treadmills until they were exhausted.

Read the full article Do Statins Make It Tough to Exercise?

Cholesterol meds raise diabetes risk in women: US study.
Post-menopausal women who take medication to lower their cholesterol face a higher risk of getting diabetes than women who do not take the popular drugs, known as statins, said a US study on Monday.


The risk was apparent even after researchers adjusted for variables such as age, race/ethnicity and body mass index, said the study in the Archives of Internal Medicine, a publication of the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA).

Read the full article Cholesterol meds raise diabetes risk in women: US study.

Statins Tied to Lung Damage in Smokers.
Statin use appears to be associated with interstitial lung abnormalities among current and former smokers, researchers found.

Among individuals with a history of at least 10 pack-years of smoking, statin use was associated with a 60% increase in the odds of having abnormalities on CT scans (OR 1.60, 95% CI 1.03 to 2.50), according to Gary Hunninghake, MD, MPH, of Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston, and colleagues.

The findings were independent of a history of high cholesterol, coronary heart disease, or a number of other cardiovascular risk factors, the researchers reported online in the American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine.

"Our findings suggest that statins may influence the susceptibility to, or progression of, interstitial lung disease," they wrote.

Read the full article Statins Tied to Lung Damage in Smokers.

Association between statin-associated myopathy and skeletal muscle damage.
Statins are among the most widely prescribed medications worldwide. Although their overall safety profile is excellent, myalgia without functional muscle impairment commonly affects patients taking statins. The clinical manifestations of statin-associated myopathy include pain and muscle weakness. Observational studies have shown a myalgia rate of 10%–15% among patients taking statins. Fulminant and potentially fatal rhabdomyolysis may also occur. Myalgia is typically considered by patients and physicians to be a minor adverse effect. Current consensus guideline support continuation of the statin therapy as long as circulating levels of creatine phosphokinase are less than 1950 U/L (10× the upper limit of normal).

We sought to determine whether statin-associated myopathy is associated with underlying structural muscle damage. We investigated whether the extent of muscle damage is reflected by the level of circulating creatine phosphokinase. We also sought to identify alterations in the expression of genes expressed in myocytes, which could provide insight into the cause of statin-associated myopathy.

Read the full article Association between statin-associated myopathy and skeletal muscle damage.

and the most interesting:
Cholesterol-Reducing Drugs May Lessen Brain Function, Says Researcher (Science Daily)
ScienceDaily (Feb. 23, 2009) — Research by an Iowa State University scientist suggests that cholesterol-reducing drugs known as statins may lessen brain function.

Yeon-Kyun Shin, a biophysics professor in the department of biochemistry, biophysics and molecular biology, says the results of his study show that drugs that inhibit the liver from making cholesterol may also keep the brain from making cholesterol, which is vital to efficient brain function.

Read the full article  Cholesterol-Reducing Drugs May Lessen Brain Function.