Study title and authors:
Statin therapy induces ultrastructural damage in skeletal muscle in patients without myalgia.
Draeger A, Monastyrskaya K, Mohaupt M, Hoppeler H, Savolainen H, Allemann C, Babiychuk EB.
Institute of Anatomy, Department of Cell Biology, University of Bern, Baltzerstrasse 2, 3012 Bern, Switzerland. draeger@ana.unibe.ch
This paper can be accessed at: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16799920
Draeger notes that muscle pain and weakness are frequent complaints in patients receiving statins. Many patients with muscle pain have creatine kinase levels that are either normal or only marginally elevated, and no obvious structural defects have been reported in patients with muscle pain.
In this study, skeletal muscle biopsies from statin-treated and non-statin-treated patients were examined using both electron microscopy and biochemical approaches to compare patterns of muscle damage.
The study found:
(a) The biopsies found clear evidence of skeletal muscle damage in statin-treated patients.
(b) The damage has a characteristic pattern that includes breakdown of the T-tubular system (continuation of the cell surface membrane) and subsarcolemmal (cell membrane) rupture.
(c) These characteristic structural abnormalities observed in the statin-treated patients were reproduced by extraction of cholesterol from skeletal muscle fibres and analysed in a test tube.
The researchers conclude: "These findings support the hypothesis that statin-induced cholesterol lowering per se contributes to myocyte (muscle cell or muscle fibre) damage".
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In this study, skeletal muscle biopsies from statin-treated and non-statin-treated patients were examined using both electron microscopy and biochemical approaches to compare patterns of muscle damage.
The study found:
(a) The biopsies found clear evidence of skeletal muscle damage in statin-treated patients.
(b) The damage has a characteristic pattern that includes breakdown of the T-tubular system (continuation of the cell surface membrane) and subsarcolemmal (cell membrane) rupture.
(c) These characteristic structural abnormalities observed in the statin-treated patients were reproduced by extraction of cholesterol from skeletal muscle fibres and analysed in a test tube.
The researchers conclude: "These findings support the hypothesis that statin-induced cholesterol lowering per se contributes to myocyte (muscle cell or muscle fibre) damage".
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