IN MY VIEW . . . Don’t rely on the social media view of statins

STATINS do not cause muscle pain — despite this being the main reason given by people for coming off them. This was confirmed by a major study published recently by the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine. But it’s something I, and many other doctors, have known for years.

Yet people remain convinced this is a significant side-effect, and over the past two decades my opinion has been sought at least 200 times — and not by my patients; by all and sundry who know I’m a medic with a beady eye on the confusions between emerging research, public health and the media.

Whenever I ask those who’ve given up their statins about their symptoms, they sheepishly admit everything is much as it was before, with their same old aches and pains — i.e. the statins were not to blame.

The trouble is that most in the age group prescribed the drugs tend to have musculoskeletal aches and pain that come and go, and it’s easy to assume the symptoms are connected to a statin (which was often accepted with reluctance in the first place).

There is a degree of irrationality in human beings, where we accept the received wisdom via the bush telegraph (and social media) more readily than the advice of the GP or practice nurse.

And this is my point: trust takes time and care, commodities all too often lacking in the world of online and telephone medical advice. The loss of the personal touch in medicine has much to answer for — the rejection of statins included.