STATINS side effects: Studies have delved into the explanation for side effects concerning statin use. 

Interestingly, it's been found it could do more with an individual's psychological state instead of physical symptoms.

Statins are typically prescribed to assist lower levels of bad cholesterol or LDL so as to scale back the danger of a attack or stroke. like most drugs there are side effects which individuals got to remember . 

However, these actual side effects occurring or are they rather the results of the nocebo effect?

A study has suggested that the common side effects often described including muscle weakness and muscle pain aren't a results of the drugs themselves but rather patients’ negative beliefs regarding the medication.

You only get the muscle-related symptoms once you know you're taking the drug, said Peter Sever, lead author of the study from the national heart and lung institute at Imperial College London.

He added that it had been important to notice that patients aren't imagining their pains.

“Patients genuinely get the symptoms,” he said. “But you can't attribute that, during this case, to the drug.”

In another study, scientists examining the results of 29 trials involving quite 80,000 people found that only a little minority of side effects were due to statins.

Patients were found to possess a greater number of great adverse effects from inactive pills taken as a part of an impact group.

Researchers from Imperial College London’s National Heart and Lung Institute say in their study that out of the side effects assessed including nausea, kidney disorder, condition and breakdown, insomnia, fatigue and gastrointestinal disturbance only the danger of diabetes was found to be slightly raised by the drugs.


Dr Judith Finegold, a part of the team completing the research, said: “We clearly found that a lot of patients in these trials – whose patients are usually well-motivated volunteers who didn’t know if they were getting a true or placebo tablet – that a lot of did report side effects while taking placebo.

“In the overall population, where patients are being prescribed a statin for an asymptomatic condition, why wouldn't it be surprising that even higher rates of side effects are reported?

“Most people within the general population, if you repeatedly ask them an in depth questionnaire, won't feel perfectly well in every way on a day .

“Why should they suddenly feel well when taking a tablet after being warned of possible adverse effects?”

Researchers from the United Kingdom and Sweden describe how they administered research between 1998 and 2004 with patients being randomly allocated to at least one of two groups, either taking statins or a placebo, and followed for quite three years.

Neither the participants nor their doctors knew which group they belonged to.

In the second a part of the study, 9,899 of the patients had the medication or placebo stopped, and both groups were then given the choice of taking statins.

The team found that, when neither the patient nor the doctors were conscious of whether statins were being taken, those taking the drugs reported similar rates of muscle problems and erectile disfunction to those taking a placebo.

By contrast, when the patients and their doctors were conscious of whether the patient was taking statins, reports of muscle-related problems were 41 percent higher among those that were taking statins.

What is the nocebo effect?

A nocebo effect is claimed to occur when negative expectations of the patient regarding a treatment cause the treatment to possess a more negative effect than it otherwise would have.

The nocebo effect may result from conditioning, as when patients become nauseated or maybe vomit on entering an area where they need recently received chemotherapy, said Health Harvard.

The health site continued: “Medications and other treatments combat symbolic features which will have nocebo effects.”