Statins

Anyone here on statins and if so care to share your experience (effects on training, recovery, etc.)? Any thoughts, advice, suggestions, etc.? TIA

Been on simvastatin for >18 years now. That's about 5x longer than I've been climbing so I can't say that I have insight whether or not it affects my climbing. I tried to get off it by eating healthier but I love bacon cheeseburgers too much. Cholesterol shot through the roof.

The biggest thing to watch out for is your liver enzymes. I know it lists myopathy & rhabdomyolysis as adverse effects but it's not very common. Most people that have problems with it are gonna be alcoholics or those with pre-existing liver issues. (Pharmacist by trade)

10+ years on, never saw anything suggesting adverse effects.

Same as Gunkiemike--12 years for me, no problems.

Climbing since 1973. On statins since 2012. 

Occasional but severe muscle cramping in glutes or calves. CoQ10 seems to help as does switching between Atorvostatin and Rosuvastatin. I get cramping in glutes when on Atorvostatin  and in calves when taking Rosuvastatin.

I suffered a dissected carotid artery in October.  Aspirin and statins is what they put me on.  Very healthy active athelete.  I have never taken pills of any kind, not even aspirn.  In any regard, the first one they put me on was way too high a dosage.  Their whole task is to prevent patients from having a stroke.  That is how they calculate wins/loses of course.  My experience is that a hospital staff treats a fit healthy person in the same fashion as a 300lb patient with a bad lifestyle.  I quit the statin, despite the risk and then the docs and I negotiated a much lower dosage.  I weighed 130lbs at the time (had nerve damage in my brain causing chemo mouth).  So I do believe you need to do your own research.  That is what we did.  We found a brand that had the lowest muscle side effects and a friend at the Cleveland clinic said it was as good as any at doing what it needed to do in my situation.  The lower dosage made much more sense as well.  I am climbing again under 3 months of that dissection.  Definity do your own research.  Good luck.

Ugh. They messed me up. But anecdote is cheap, and my N=1 irrelevant for anyone else's case, so here's the real deal:

I wish this website was not titled with such a hippie name. If you follow the links to actual articles, you will find they are bona fide medical studies from the national institutes of health etc published predominantly on pubmed. These are the real deal, but it takes a bit of diligence to click through to the hundreds of clinical studies showing the problems with statins.

https://greenmedinfo.com/guide/health-guide-statin-drugs

When what happened to me happened to me, I delved into a lot of research about statins, the cholesterol theory of causation of heart disease etc. There still is not causative proof as we have been led to believe for around 50+ years. There are correlations yes, cholesterol is involved in the atherosclerosis process, but the conditions for the endothelium also need to be there for the cholesterol to deposit into plaques. It is not simple a matter of cholesterol being the bad guy. Many factors involved. 

And in terms of the claims and probably what your doctor told you about the statistics for better outcomes, the relative risk numbers they tout are brilliant mathematical manipulation which to me are in no way representative of the actual data. 

If you read lipitor's own prescribing info, the bits about clinical trials, for example the ASCOT study blurb below, (I have bolded the numerical data). If you look closely you will see that they call a 1.1% absolute difference in numbers a 36% relative risk reduction. If you look up relative risk reduction calculation, you'll see that the percentage is derived from mathematically comparing 1.9 to 3.0. It is not representative of the actual numbers of patients. If you are the kind of patient selected for this study, you have 1.1% less chance of a cardiac event compared to those who do not take it, but they call that 36% less risk.

Most doctors do not even know this, and will state the 36% figure to encourage you to take it. Mine did. 

https://www.accessdata.fda.gov/drugsatfda_docs/label/2019/020702s073lbl.pdf

"14 CLINICAL STUDIES 14.1 Prevention of Cardiovascular Disease In the Anglo-Scandinavian Cardiac Outcomes Trial (ASCOT), the effect of LIPITOR on fatal and non-fatal coronary heart disease was assessed in 10,305 hypertensive patients 40–80 years of age (mean of 63 years), without a previous myocardial infarction and with TC levels ≤251 mg/dL (6.5 mmol/L). Additionally, allpatients had at least 3of the following cardiovascular riskfactors: male gender (81.1%), age >55 years (84.5%), smoking (33.2%), diabetes (24.3%), history of CHD in a first-degree relative (26%), TC:HDL >6 (14.3%), peripheral vascular disease (5.1%), left ventricular hypertrophy (14.4%), prior cerebrovascular event (9.8%), specific ECG abnormality (14.3%), proteinuria/albuminuria (62.4%). In this double-blind, placebo-controlled study, patients were treated with anti-hypertensive therapy (Goal BP <140/90 mm Hg for non-diabetic patients; <130/80 mm Hg for diabetic patients) and allocated to either LIPITOR 10 mg daily (n=5168) or placebo (n=5137), using a covariate adaptive method which took into account the distribution of nine baseline characteristics of patients already enrolled and minimized the imbalance of those characteristics across the groups. Patients were followed for a median duration of 3.3 years. The effect of 10 mg/day of LIPITOR on lipid levels was similar to that seen in previous clinical trials. Reference ID: 4418807 LIPITOR significantly reduced the rate of coronary events [either fatal coronary heart disease (46 events in the placebo group vs. 40 events in the LIPITOR group) or non-fatal MI (108 events in the placebo group vs. 60 events in the LIPITOR group)] with a relative risk reduction of 36% [(based on incidences of 1.9% for LIPITOR vs. 3.0% for placebo), p=0.0005 (see Figure 1)]. The risk reduction was consistent regardless of age, smoking status, obesity, or presence of renal dysfunction. The effect of LIPITOR was seen regardless of baseline LDL levels. Due to the small number of events, results for women were inconclusive."

I tried multiple statins across the better part of a year.   Every time they got me up to the level they needed me to be on, I just could not tolerate it.   I had leg cramps and extreme leg weakness.   I would be climbing and literally not be able to push off my legs.   So I now take Repatha injections once every two weeks.   I have no side effects and my cholesterol has been cut in half.   Feel free to PM if you want more detailed info.  
Good luck!

Statins are some of the cheapest and safest meds out there. I take a low dose Atorvastatin and the only effect is it’s lowered my cholesterol.

jms wrote:

I tried multiple statins across the better part of a year.   Every time they got me up to the level they needed me to be on, I just could not tolerate it.   I had leg cramps and extreme leg weakness.   I would be climbing and literally not be able to push off my legs.   So I now take Repatha injections once every two weeks.   I have no side effects and my cholesterol has been cut in half.   Feel free to PM if you want more detailed info.  
Good luck!

Statins have been linked to neuropathy in some people so thats interesting that this was a side affect for you.  I think many people on statins don't  use their legs much and may not even notice. 

Dow Williams wrote:

We found a brand that had the lowest muscle side effects

Dow, could you please share the name?

Colonel Mustard wrote:

I take a low dose Atorvastatin and the only effect is it’s lowered my cholesterol.

Colonel, could you please share your dose. 

Yury wrote:

Dow, could you please share the name?

Pravastatin Sodium USP, 20mg.  Do remember I am not taking them for Cholesterol though, they want me on them until my dissected artery heals.  I have very low Cholesterol.  We are not convinced I need to be on them at all, but even though I slept at a Holiday Inn Express last night, I am no doc.

Has anyone tried alternate day dosing for long lasting statins?

Yury wrote:

Colonel, could you please share your dose. 

10mg

1st statin I tried made me stupid, they call it brain fog.  I could not concentrate at work and spent all my time looking out the window.  My job requires there ability to think.  Going off the statin fixed the problem.  Another colleague told me he had gotten stupid recently.  I asked if he was recently put on a statin and he was.  I suggested he go off the statin. Next time I saw him he said he was able to think again.  I often wonder if the incredible amount of stupidity in our society could be the result of so many people on statins.  Cholesterol is used in the brain. 

2nd statin I was put on (lipitor) ruined my endurance after a few months (2).   When riding the bike I would feel ok for a few minutes and then feel bonked for a few minutes.  Repeat until I finished the ride.  On approach hikes I was no longer leading the group but was last to arrive.  A new doctor put me on Coq10 which helped somewhat(80%) but I did not return to normal.  I quit the statin and was back to normal after about 9 months. 

Same new doctor had me get heart calcium score which shows I have almost no potential for heart disease and we decided to not bother with statins because they are unlikely to provide me any benefit. 

On a low dose of rosuvostatin. I work out hard and see favorable strength gains, including in legs, with no side effects. Been on the drug about 1.5 years. Sorry to hear of the troubles others have, that sucks.

I appreciate the chiming in from everyone. Gonna see how things work out and if I can control things strictly through diet

Great comment, mountainhick!

Our family has hypercholesterolemia, and my dad took a statin for years. He strongly suggested that I do so. I tried that in my early 30s for a while. One particular observation stood out: I found I felt like I had done a Grade IV after doing a Grade II in RMNP. I had felt very sore in my muscles for a while after surprisingly normal climbing. I figured after looking at some of the data back then that it wasn't worth the small benefit on association conclusions to limit my life, so I stopped. Maybe with better data I may restart after these decades off of it.

Leo Paik wrote:

Great comment, mountainhick!

Our family has hypercholesterolemia, and my dad took a statin for years. He strongly suggested that I do so. I tried that in my early 30s for a while. One particular observation stood out: I found I felt like I had done a Grade IV after doing a Grade II in RMNP. I had felt very sore in my muscles for a while after surprisingly normal climbing. I figured after looking at some of the data back then that it wasn't worth the small benefit on association conclusions to limit my life, so I stopped. Maybe with better data I may restart after these decades off of it.

Started with Atorvostatin and my joints hurt after a week or 2... I tried to push thru it but then my sciatica nerve was acting up around week 4(no previous issues with nerves).

Stopped taking these and in a couple weeks my pain was gone.

Doc put me on Simvastatin and joint pain began to return.

I stopped taking these and these problems went away.

Camp over!

As a nutritionist who's seen a lot of high-cholesterol clients, I'm going to suggest that you need far more information than just your cholesterol numbers. What mountainhick said is extremely important and right-on. And while those with familial hypercholesterolemia definitely need statins, many, many (most?) people who take these drugs do not need them. As mountainhick pointed out, relative risk numbers are almost always promoted to demonstrate efficacy while absolute risk, which is the ONLY number that matters, is often very low. Statins are NOT benign drugs, and the overall average increase in longevity people receive from them amounts to about 4 days ( bmjopen.bmj.com/content/5/9…). There's a UCLA study done several years ago that documented all patients coming into their emergency department with myocardial infarctions, i.e., heart attacks. Fully 75% of them had normal cholesterol numbers. Unfortunately, but predictably, the researchers concluded that LDL optimal levels should be even lower than recommended. However, cholesterol is a vital component for health (which I won't go into here.) 

What I don't see mentioned in this thread is that cholesterol QUALITY is far more important than its QUANTITY, despite most doctors apparently not knowing anything about this. Both LDL and HDL can be tested for quality, although LDL is the more common test. LDL can be light and fluffy or small and dense. Light and fluffy is what you want. Your Triglyceride levels are also a huge key as to your heart disease risk, although what they actually indicate has more to do with metabolic (blood sugar) balance. It's now known that insulin resistance is at the heart (pun intended) of CVD risk. Instead of going on and on about this, I'm going to turn you over to cardiologist Stephen Sinatra, MD. Good article here for you, and he's also got a book you can purchase:  https://heartmdinstitute.com/heart-health/vap-test-cholesterol-particle-size/  

BTW, for those out there on statins and having muscular, metabolic (type 2 diabetes), neurologic, or other symptoms, the supplement CoQ10 may be what you need. I say "may" because each individual needs to be medically evaluated to understand what's going on. But statins definitely deplete CoQ10, which affects mitochondrial function (mitochondria are cellular energy producers): https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/jcsm.12654

There are also studies just now emerging that indicate long-term statin use is associated with increased coronary artery calcification ( journals.plos.org/plosone/a…). The Conclusion in the abstract notes that this effect was found just in smokers, but if you read the Discussion further down, you'll note that it was found in all long-term, especially high-dose, users.