Statin fear ‘leading to thousands of deaths’

TENS of thousands of people die every year because claims about statins’ side-effects left them too afraid to take the potentially life-saving drugs, a scientist has warned.

Professor Peter Sever yesterday called on officials to remove information about adverse effects from the pills’ packaging.

The Imperial College London professor said there is little evidence side-effects such as muscle pain are caused by the statins. He added that by refusing to take the cholesterolbusting drugs, people are putting themselves at risk of heart attacks and strokes.

Professor Sever, lead author of a major study into statins, found in a trial that patients who did not know they were taking statins started reporting muscle pain only when they were made aware they were on the drug.

He said the only possible explanation was that the pain was not caused by the drug but was due to a ‘nocebo effect’. This is when people become convinced their drugs are causing side-effects and is the opposite of a ‘placebo effect’ in which dummy drugs improve people’s health.

‘People are dying because of a nocebo effect, in my opinion,’ he said. ‘This is not a case of people making up symptoms. Patients can experience very real pain as a result of the nocebo effect. What our study shows is that it’s precisely the expectation of harm that is likely causing the increase in muscle pain and weakness.’

As well as muscle pain the supposed side-effects of statins include sleep problems, erectile dysfunction and cognitive impairment.

Professor Sever said the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) had ‘jumped the gun’ by insisting the side-effects be listed on packaging nearly a decade ago.

He said: ‘There are people out there who are dying because they’re not taking statins, and the numbers are large, the numbers are tens of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands.’

Roughly six million people in Britain are thought to take statins, preventing 80,000 heart attacks and strokes every year. However, another six million should be taking the drugs.

Professor Sever, whose work is published in the Lancet medical journal, led a study tracking 10,180 patients aged 40 to 79 over five and a half years.

When people were told they were taking the drug their complaints of muscle pain increased by 41 per cent.

Professor Sever, who himself takes statins, stressed there are some real side-effects, but these are rare. They include myopathy, which results in severe muscle weakness.

His trial was funded by drugs firm Pfizer which makes statins. Professor Sever said Pfizer had not influenced the study.

Cardiologist Dr Aseem Malhotra, a critic of the mass use of statins, said: ‘I fear the misrepresentation of research on statins – both in terms of benefit and harms – will be one of the biggest cons and scandals in the history of medicine.’

An MHRA spokesman insisted side-effects are only listed on drug packets if they are a reasonable possibility.

‘One of the biggest scandals’