Study Links Statins to Side Effects

Tacoma, WAA recently published study suggests musculoskeletal conditions can be added to the list of Crestor side effects and side effects experienced by users of other statin medications.

The study was published online in JAMA Internal Medicine (6/3/13) and investigated whether the use of statins was associated with musculoskeletal conditions. The conditions focused on were arthropathy (joint disease) and injury. To conduct the study, researchers divided patients into two groups: those who used statins for a minimum of 90 days during the study period and those who did not receive a statin at all in the study period.

Researchers found that musculoskeletal conditions, arthropathies, injuries and pain were more frequent in patients who used statins than in those who did not. They noted, however, that there could be more musculoskeletal adverse events that had not been included in the study and therefore further studies would be necessary.

According to a news release issued at the time the study was published, “While statins effectively lower cardiovascular illnesses and death, the full spectrum of statin musculoskeletal adverse events (AEs) is unknown. Statin-associated musculoskeletal AEs include a wide variety of clinical presentations, including muscle weakness, muscle cramps and tendinous (tendon) diseases, the authors write in the study background.”

Of concern is that statins may be prescribed to younger patients to prevent heart attack or stroke. But these patients, who may be more active than the older patients, could be at a higher risk of musculoskeletal injury as well.

Statins were initially introduced on the market to prevent a second heart attack or stroke in patients, but now healthy patients are also prescribed statins as a preventive measure. But in addition to pain and injury, statins have been linked to an increased risk of diabetes, immune-mediated necrotizing myopathy and rhabdomylosis, serious side effects to risk for a healthy patient trying to prevent a heart problem.

In October 2012, the FDA announced a change to the safety labels of statin drugs to warn about the risk of immune-mediated necrotizing myopathy, an autoimmune myopathy.

Statins are used to lower the patient’s cholesterol levels and reduce the risk of heart attack and stroke. There are also concerns that statins can interact with other commonly prescribed medications to cause serious adverse reactions.