“This research will help millions more people around the world feel confident talking to their doctors about taking statins to reduce their risk of fatal heart attacks and strokes,” he said. “This is the definitive study. This is truly golden rule proof. The size of the study gives us enormous confidence.” Experts said that in the future, doctors should place less emphasis on muscle pain and be able to reassure patients that there is little increased risk. The study found that more than a quarter of patients taking the tablets reported muscle symptoms – but similar findings were found in those given a dummy pill. For every 1,000 people who start taking statins, only 11 develop muscle pain or weakness as a result, according to the study. Overall, the drugs were found to be responsible for only one in 15 cases of muscle pain, and even this extra risk disappeared after a year in them. The scientists said the symptoms were not in people’s minds, but were a case of ordinary aches and pains, often caused by old age, being mistakenly attributed to daily medication. Because patients are often told that statins can cause muscle pain, a “nocebo” effect is created, meaning they are wrongly blamed for unrelated diseases, the researchers said. They took findings from 23 randomized controlled trials, in which all participants did not know whether they had taken a statin or a placebo pill. About 27.1 percent of those taking statins reported muscle pain or weakness – a “tiny” increase over the 26.6 percent found in the placebo group.
With most middle-aged or older by the time they were put on the drugs, many mistook aches and pains that come with age and ailments common to the elderly as a side effect of the drugs, experts said. .

“Memorial” study of 30 years of data

Professor Colin Baigent, director of the Medical Research Council’s Population Health Research Unit at the University of Oxford, said: “There is no doubt that aging increases the risk of experiencing pain and other conditions known to cause pain… disease of the thyroid, arthritis, even something as simple as exercise when you’re not particularly fit.” He said scientists had embarked on a “monumental” study of 30 years of data to settle the matter. Until now, the debate has been skewed by non-randomized studies that did not include placebos or random allocation, resulting in “fairly extreme” estimates that misled the public. “This has prevented patients from starting statins or caused them to stop treatment when they experience muscle pain,” he added. “Over 90 percent of the time, when a patient taking a statin gets muscle pain, it’s not the statin that’s causing it. “If we can get people better informed about the real risks of muscle pain, we can get people to stay in treatment longer.” The scientist also said there is a need to revise the information included in the drug packages to clarify that most of the muscle pain seen during statin treatment is not due to the pills. Current drug package inserts were often “incredibly misleading,” he said.

“Reassuring for clinicians and patients”

The researchers said GPs needed to be extremely careful about how such risks were discussed, rather than placing such an emphasis on side effects. Professor Baigent said: ‘Until now it was believed that keeping patients safe was best served by these warnings about the possibility of muscle pain. “What we’ve shown is not the best way to serve patients, because patients receive this information and, by the time they develop muscle pain, they suspect the statin. This causes many of them to stop using the statin, which actually puts them at risk.” Professor Martin Marshall, president of the Royal College of GPs, said: “This study should be reassuring to clinicians and patients taking or considering taking statins. “GPs are well trained to prescribe and will do so based on individual patient circumstances. “We will take into account a patient’s health needs and medical history, as well as clinical guidance, and consider different treatment options, not just drug treatments, in a conversation with the patient about the risks and benefits of each.” .