The raison d'etre of this website is to provide you with hard scientific information which may help you make informed decisions in your quest for health (so far I have blogged concise summaries of over 1,500 scientific studies and have had three books published).

My research is mainly focused on the effects of cholesterol, saturated fat and statin drugs on health. If you know anyone who is worried about their cholesterol levels and heart disease, or has been told to take statin drugs you could send them a link to this website, and to my statin or cholesterol or heart disease books.

David Evans

Independent Health Researcher

Tuesday, 20 April 2010

Statins and muscle problems in athletes

This post contains a summary of a study published in the British Journal of Pharmacology 2004 Apr;57(4):525-8

Study title and authors:
Malignant Medical Myths: Why MEdical Treatment Causes 200,000 Deaths in the USA each Year, and How to Protect Yourself
Books:
Professional athletes suffering from familial hypercholesterolaemia rarely tolerate statin treatment because of muscular problems.
Sinzinger H, O'Grady J.
Wilhelm Auerswald Atherosclerosis Research Group (ASF) Vienna, Institute for Diagnosis and Treatment of Atherosclerosis and Lipid Disorders (ATHOS), Vienna, Austria. helmut.sinzinger@univie.ac.at

This study can be accessed at: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15025753

This study investigated the effect of statin treatment on professional athletes. The study included 22 professional athletes who were monitored for eight years.

The study found:
(a) Only six out of the 22 finally tolerated at least one member of the statin drugs (atorvastatin, fluvastatin, lovastatin, pravastatin, simvastatin).
(b) In three of these six the first statin prescribed allowed training performance without any limitation.
(c) Changing the drug demonstrated that only two out of the 22 tolerated all of the statins examined.

These findings indicate that in sports performers only about 20% tolerate statin treatment without side-effects.

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