Beware Statins For Your Own Health
Part two of our report continued -:
Many adverse effects recognised in the post-marketing surveillance process, and their frequency is likely to be understated because few doctors report them. Nevertheless, many unknown potential side effects from statins have already been reported
Heart Failure
All statins inhibit the synthesis of hydroxymethylglutaryl coenzyme A reductase, an enzyme involved in synthesis of the precursor of cholesterol and other important molecules such as coenzyme Q10, vital for mitochondrial energy production. Thus statins lower plasma Q10 concentrations and worsen cardiac function in patients with heart failure, and oral coenzyme Q10 can improve or prevent this serious complication.
Heart failure has not been reported with statins, possibly because it has been seen to be the result of the primary disease rather than an adverse effect but also because patients with imminent or manifest congestive failure are routinely excluded from statin trials. In addition, there is a likelihood that statins have an effect that is similar to reducing stress levels in blood vessels. This is an entirely different situation to the mainstream belief that reducing cholesterol reduces death from heart attack.
Mental and Neurological Symptoms
Cholesterol is vital for the development and function of the brain. It is therefore unsurprising that reduced concentrations may produce mental and neurological complaints such as severe irritability, aggressive behaviour, suicidal impulses, cognitive impairment, memory loss, global amnesia, polyneuropathy, and erectile dysfunction.In many cases the symptoms were reversible and re-occurred after re-challenge. None of these side effects are mentioned on the product labels or information inserts for Statins
One patient reports, after taking statins she developed chronic insomnia that she still has not recovered from. Shortly after that, she developed peripheral neuropathy a numbness and tingling in her feet. At that same time she began to have intermittent heart palpitations a sort of “fight or flight” syndrome. She reports it was as if she was having anxiety symptoms without any mental cause.
It was also noticed that she had become more irritable with people around her. Over a period of two years of taking statins, she had also developed a chronic sense of exhaustion, and began to experience deterioration in her cognitive abilities. She began to have trouble remembering words for things or people’s names. Her memory began to go she says I could read a whole book and then have only the vaguest idea afterwards what I had read.
She I also suffered intermittent loss of sexual libido. Because the side effects of the statins are not widely publicized, she was not aware of them. It seems she then was then given a book to read called “Secrets of Serotonin.”
That book noted that statins were correlated with a higher incidence of death due to suicide, accidents and violence. If the statins exacerbate any tendencies towards depression or anxiety or cause mental confusion, this would explain those results. That was her first inkling that Zocor might be the cause of her various unexplained symptoms and mental deterioration. She has now taken herself off Statins