Statins: the truth from those who take them
As research out this week claims thousands are dying because they’re afraid to take the controversial pills, two readers tell how sticking with statins is saving their lives.
I was 15 when my father, aged just 41, dropped dead of a heart attack while painting the house.
“My mother and performed CPR while we waited for an ambulance, but it was too late. He’d had a minor scare the year before, but this was a massive, fatal attack. It was the worst day of our lives,” says Suzanne Sheppard, 44.
“Although my younger brother and I had our hearts checked soon after dad’s shocking death, it was only years later, at the age of 27, that my GP decided to retest my cholesterol and I was found to have a genetically very high level of 12 – anything below five is considered healthy.
“This put me at serious risk of having a heart attack like my father, so I was immediately put on statins,” says the full-time mum from Cardiff.
With seven million Britons currently prescribed the cholesterol-lowering drugs to reduce their risk of heart attack and stroke, Suzanne is far from alone.
The latest government guidelines recommend that statins should be prescribed to all patients with a 10 per cent or higher risk of having a heart attack or stroke in the next 10 years – a figure GPS work out based on age, blood pressure, cholesterol levels and family history. However, in recent years, scare stories of side effects experienced by those on the drugs – including muscle pain, insomnia and memory loss – have led many to ditch their pills. But this week a major new study published in The Lancet suggested many of these apparent side effects aren’t caused by the drugs themselves – but by patients simply expecting to experience them.
In fact, participants in the study who didn’t know which drugs they’d been given were no more likely to report symptoms than those given sugar pills. But once told they were on statins, the reported side effects shot up by 41 percent.
Lead researcher Professor Sever, from Imperial College London, was clear about the implications: “Tens of thousands of people are dying because they’re choosing not to take statins for fear of side effects that don’t exist.”
So is it time to stop giving statins a hard time? They’re one of the most widely researched and used drugs of the last 20 years and the evidence that they significantly reduce LDL or “bad” cholesterol – which in turn slashes your risk of Suzanne with her son Cameron
heart attack or stroke by a third – is irrefutable, according to the British Heart Foundation. Suzanne says: “These statin-haters clearly haven’t lost a loved one at a heartbreakingly young age due to high cholesterol. If cholesterollowering medicine had been available and given to my father. he could still be here today.” So are there any side effects to worry about? Not for most of us. As the new study shows, mild to moderate side effects are actually not that common. One exceptionally rare, but nasty possible side effect of statins is severe muscle damage, but even this is reversible. “We also know that if you’re already at high risk of diabetes, statins may further increase your chances of developing the condition,” says Professor Nilesh Samani, medical director at the British Heart Foundation. “But as diabetes itself is a serious heart disease risk factor, the benefits override any risk for most people.” This kind of health gamble is one Suzanne has no intention of taking: “I’ll happily continue to take statins to ensure my family never have to go through the pain I did. CAROLINE JONES