In response to my previous post about Lipitor, someone named Brian commented:
I recently stopped taking Zocor [a statin, like Lipitor, and the most prescribed anti-cholesterol drug]. I started taking it at the same time I started using a CPAP machine to treat sleep apnea. While my sleep was more restful, I remained fatigued. After a year of Zocor, I was diagnosed with ADHD. Following this diagnosis, I tried a string of medications — adderall, stratera, and ritalin. I even became depressed and was put on an SSRI. My memory and mental prowess faded and became extremely spotty at best. I would use IQ apps on my iPhone to measure my mental prowess — and usually scored in the 75-100 range! (Prior to Zocor, similar computerized IQ tests would yield answers from the 130s to the 170s.) . . .
So I quit taking Zocor. (Initially, I tried using COQ10 to moderate the effects, but it proved ineffective.) . . . My mind is back, as are my computerized IQ scores. I no longer arbitrarily stop talking in the middle of sentences after losing my train of thought.
Apparently Zocor caused serious mental problems. Is this rare or common? Common. Here is an article about it. The idea that statins have bad mental effects is old. At first it was dismissed. Here is one dismissal:
The issue of low serum cholesterol and depression was directly examined in three randomized, placebo controlled trials of statins in which indices of depression were measured in all the participants—a total of 7400 people taking active treatment and 2400 taking placebo. Depression was no more common among those taking active treatment.
Apparently these three large randomized placebo-controlled trials got the wrong answer. Curious.
Perhaps statins cause mental impairment in everyone. Everyone’s brain uses cholesterol. If you are going to start or stop taking a statin (such as Zocor or Lipitor) and would like to learn how the drug affects/affected your mental function, please contact me. I am interested in helping you do that.
In the top 15 most prescribed drugs, Lipitor (#7) was the only non-generic. The profits are large, the benefits small and plausibly outweighed by the costs. There is great room for improvement in determination of how much Lipitor and other statins impair mental function.
I think it’s also possible that Bruce’s cognitive impairment was caused — or exacerbated — by the psychiatric drugs (Adderall, Strattera, Ritalin, and an SSRI) that he was taking. See, Anatomy of an Epidemic: Magic Bullets, Psychiatric Drugs, and the Astonishing Rise of Mental Illness in America.
An account of dealing with the more difficult drugs, by someone who can’t just walk out on convention medicine.
My mum was prescribed statins as a precautionary measure due to cholesterol levels only slightly above the official acceptable threshold. She was hesitant to take the medication and asked me to look up the side-effects online. She did this because she knew two people who had specifically warned her off ever taking statins because of the major side-effects they had endured; among other things, hair-loss. One of them, a woman who had had a full head of hair and no history of alopecia, now had barely a wisp left.
This is not a medication that should be given out on the basis of statistics because there are too many unknowns and danger-signs. It should be given out like ECT: when there is short-term danger to the patient and other methods have failed.
Apparently these three large randomized placebo-controlled trials got the wrong answer. Curious.
I don’t know if it’s curious or predictable. I’m currently reading “White Coats and Black Hats” an expose of pharmaceutical company marketing practices. It’s very common to publish studies supporting their product while ignoring or denying any ill effects. These companies manage to publish in many “respected” journals as well as their own, in house, journals and hide the conflict of interest
My problems were exacerbated by the psychiatric drugs. But I was on a statin for a year-and-a-half before taking any of the other drugs. All of the mental problems showed up prior to taking any of the psychiatric drugs. None of the problems went away until after discontinuing the statin, even though I had discontinued taking the psychiatric drugs weeks, months, or years earlier.
If I have time, I’ll blog my experiences in a linear fashion.