Taking statins does not commonly cause muscle pain, new research suggests. Prescribed for the prevention of cardiovascular disease, there has been widespread concern the cholesterol-lowering drugs may frequently cause muscle pain or weakness.
Experts suggest this pain can either cause patients to stop taking the medication or discourage them from taking it in the first place, meaning they could miss out on the benefit of it lowering their risk of heart attack or stroke. A new study looked at patient data to analyse the risk of muscle pain caused by statins in more detail than ever before, and found this is low and does not outweigh the benefits of statin therapy.
Professor Colin Baigent, director of the Medical Research Council Population Health Research Unit at the University of Oxford, and joint lead author of the study, said: "These findings suggest that if a patient on statins reports muscle pain, then it should first be assumed that the symptoms are not due to the statin and are most likely due to other causes.
