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

Wednesday, 24 February 2016

Atorvastatin use associated with acute pancreatitis

This study was published in Medicine (Baltimore) 2016 Feb;95(7):e2545

Study title and authors:
Atorvastatin Use Associated With Acute Pancreatitis: A Case-Control Study in Taiwan.
Lai SW, Lin CL, Liao KF.
College of Medicine (S-WL, C-LL); Department of Family Medicine (S-WL); Management Office for Health Data (C-LL), China Medical University Hospital, Taichung;

This study can be accessed at: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26886597

The aim of this study was to explore the relationship between atorvastatin use and acute pancreatitis. The study consisted of 5,810 cases aged 20 to 84 years with a first-time diagnosis of acute pancreatitis and 5,733 randomly selected controls without acute pancreatitis.

The study found that current users of atorvastatin had a 67% increased risk of acute pancreatitis compared with subjects with never use of atorvastatin.

Lai concluded: "Current use of atorvastatin is associated with the diagnosis of acute pancreatitis."

Links to other studies:
Statins increase the risk of acute pancreatitis by 44%
Use of statins associated with a 25% increased risk of pancreatitis
Pancreatitis induced by statins