After biggest study yet, Oxford expert says: STATINS ARE SAFE
– and we should give them to 6m more people
THE benefits of statins are hugely underestimated and far outweigh any harm, the biggest ever review into their use finds today.
According to Oxford University researchers, the cheap daily pills prevent at least 80,000 heart attacks and strokes in the UK every year.
But tens of thousands more could be avoided if a greater number of patients were persuaded to take them, they say.
The lead researcher said he believed the number taking the drugs should be doubled to 12million. Currently, an estimated six million adults in the UK are prescribed the pills.
Professor Sir Rory Collins, head of Oxford’s Nuffield Department of Population Health said: ‘Our review shows that the numbers of people who avoid heart attacks and strokes by taking statin therapy are very much larger than the numbers who have sideeffects with it.
‘We’ve had an underestimation of the benefits, and a massive overestimation of the harms.’
Professor Liam Smeeth, from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, who was also involved in the study, said there was ‘overwhelming scientific evidence of the benefits’ of statins.
He said: ‘The best available scientific evidence tells us that statins are effective, safe drugs that have a crucial role in helping prevent cardiovascular disease.
‘This is the leading cause of morbidity [illness] and mortality worldwide.’
The pills cost less than 6p a day and reduce cholesterol levels in the blood, which in turn trigger heart attacks and strokes.
But a series of studies in the past three years have linked them to severe muscle pain, type 2 diabetes, kidney damage, liver failure and even death.
Today’s study, which is published in the Lancet, examined more than 300 trials carried out since 1990 involving more than 240,000 patients.
The review is the largest and most comprehensive so far to weigh up the benefits against the risks. Although the authors have previously had research funded by drugs companies making stat- ins, they insist this has not swayed their conclusions.
The researchers calculated that statins are currently preventing 80,000 heart attacks and strokes in the UK a year.
They estimated that for every 100,000 patients taking statins for at least five years, a total of 1,500 strokes and heart attacks would be prevented annually.
By comparison, a maximum of 215 patients would be expected to suffer side effects.
These include five with muscle pain, 100 with diabetes, ten with rare strokes into the brain and the remainder with other milder symptoms – not including kidney failure or liver damage. Professor Collins said that the side-effects could easily be halted by stopping taking them. But suffering a heart attack or stroke by not taking the pills was ‘irreversible’, and ‘devastating; he added.
‘Consequently, there is a serious cost to public health from making misleading claims about high side effect rates,’ he said.
The researchers argued that many patients wrongly blamed their statins for ‘side effects’ which were not caused by the medication and would have occurred anyway.
These include muscular pain which is commonly caused by exercise.
A study earlier this summer estimated that 200,000 adults stopped their statins in 2013 and 2014 following a series of negative studies in the British Medical Journal. Although most resumed them, researchers said the short period without the pills could lead to 500 deaths by 2024.
Jules Payne, Chief Executive of the charity Heart UK, said today’s study ‘will give patients and doctors the confidence in statins as a life-saving medication.’
Professor Jeremy Pearson, Associate Medical Director at the British Heart Foundation, said: ‘This comprehensive review reiterates the life saving benefits of statins, which vastly outweigh the rare side effects associated with the medicine.
‘Evidence, from many objective clinical trials, shows that statins are a safe and effective way of reducing heart attack and stroke risk.’
‘Overwhelming evidence’