Are statins safe, effective or even necessary?
Do you know that the first person to discover statins, Akira Endo, when diagnosed with high cholesterol himself, refused to take statins? That’s according to his obituary in the Daily Telegraph. He died June 5 2024, at age 90!
In his weekly column at The Daily Telegraph, Dr James Le Fanu, a long-time critic of statins, addresses a recent study which suggests statins have negligible side-effects.
He warns: ‘The recent claim that the adverse effects of cholesterol-lowering statins (such as muscular aches and pains, impaired memory and low mood) are “hugely overstated” will not impress those who have had the misfortune to have been so afflicted…’
He has thoroughly documented the discovery of statins, their history and marketing, all of which bring statins into disrepute, and verge on the dark and sinister, in his beautifully written book Too Many Pills. Other resources from scientists and doctors with heterodox views are available below; read, watch and make up your own mind.
Pharmacist and lecturer in pharmacy, Terry Maguire also has questions, even giving up his daily dose due to side-effects and lack of evidence as to effectiveness, if cholesterol is even a risk. . . . Read his experience and argument against statins in the Irish Pharmacist.
Paul Mason, an Australian doctor has given some informative and very damning talks about statins, which are available here:
Dr Uffe Ravnskov is certain that cholesterol is a good thing and seems little worried about ‘good’ and ‘bad’ cholesterol, and even high LDL, arguing ‘High cholesterol is beneficial‘. Dr Ravnskov explains his position at the BMJ: ‘The benefits of familial hypercholesterolaemia‘.
However, a major authority on statins, and a fierce critic who has spent some two decades subverting the accepted belief in the benefits of statins, is the Scottish doctor Malcolm Kendrick. After he published his book The Great Cholesterol Con, Dr Margaret McCartney, a Galsgow GP who used to write a weekly column on medicine at the Financial Times reviewed Kendrick’s book and – from memory! – concluded: ‘My advice, after reading this book, is that you should think twice before getting your cholesterol checked, let alone take statins for it.’ That was circa 2007. Kendrick has published more books since, the latest being The Clot Thickens.
Side effects of statins
Dr Le Fanu concludes his warning by suggesting doctors, when confronted with unusual symptoms, should consider side-effects of statins as the cause. So let’s look at some side-effects.
memory lapses
angry, ‘snappy’
low mood
‘serious cognitive dysfunction’ (the Center for Disease Control, quoted by Le Fanu)
loss of libido
myopathy
night cramps
muscle pain, especially the torso
fatigue
falling of eyelashes
polymyalgia
shin pain; tenosynovitis
peripheral neuropathy
acid reflux
mouth; burning and dryness