Recently there was a great article about statins in, of all places the January 28, 2008 issue of Business Week. The article entitled “Do Cholesterol Drugs do any Good?” asks some very pointed questions about the practice of putting people with high cholesterol on these drugs. One ad for a statin claims a 36% reduction in patients with multiple risk factors for heart disease. The ad has a asterisk stating that the study performed had 3% of the placebo group having a heart attack compared to 2% of the group receiving the drug. In reality that translates to one fewer heart attack for every 100 people taking the drug. That means that you need to treat 100 people in order to prevent one heart attack. The article goes on to say that the drugs are virtually useless in anyone who has not had a heart attack or who does not have signs of active heart disease.
Statins work by inhibiting the enzyme methylglutaryl coenzyme A (HMG-CoA) reductase. They prevent the production of mevalonate from HMG-CoA. The body converts mevalonate to cholesterol and a variety of other products. One of the things that melvalonate produces is Coenzyme Q 10; so these drugs ultimately prevent the production of coenzyme Q 10. Patients taking these drugs commonly experience exercise intolerance, myalgia and myoglobinuria. Studies show that these drugs have the potential to cause myopathies and rhabdomyolysis with renal failure. The FDA has warned about liver failure in conjunction with these drugs. These more serious side effects occur in about 1% of the population taking the drugs.
The heart contains high levels of coenzyme Q 10 and these levels are found to be lower in people suffering from congestive heart failure. According to an article appearing in The Lancet (1998;352(Suppl. 1):39-41) notes that the incidence of heart failure has dramatically increased in the last three or four decades. The prevalence of heart failure has increased by 70% between 1990 and 2000. Cholesterol lowering drugs are a nearly $28 billion per year industry, so don’t look for any research in any medical journals (which, by the way, sell ads to drug companies) linking statins to heart failure. The CoQ10 information is not in the Business Week article, but some very good statistics on the uselessness of these drugs are in the article.
