Specialized treatment helps cholesterol patients who suffer side effects from statins

Up to 15 percent of patients who take cholesterol-lowering statin medications experience muscle pain or other side effects, and many patients simply stop taking the drugs.

But a Loyola University Medical Center study has found that "statin-intolerant" patients still can significantly reduce their cholesterol by going to a lipid clinic staffed with physicians specially trained in treating cholesterol problems.

Among 22 statin-intolerant patients referred to Loyola's Lipid Clinic, total cholesterol dropped from 257 mg/dl to 198 mg/dl. LDL ("bad") cholesterol dropped from 172 mg/dl to 123 mg/dl, the study found.

By comparison, in a control group of 21 statin-intolerant patients who were not referred to a lipid clinic, total cholesterol dropped by only 3 points, and LDL cholesterol dropped by only 1 point.

"Stain intolerance can be a significant barrier to patients in meeting their cholesterol goals," said Binh An P. Phan, MD, senior author of the study. "Referring to a formal lipid clinic may be an effective strategy to help improve cholesterol treatment in this challenging population."

Findings were presented at the 2013 National Lipid Association Scientific Sessions by Taishi Hirai, MD, a co-author of the study.

Side Effects Prompt Patients To Stop Cholesterol Drugs With one-quarter of adults over age 45 taking cholesterol-lowering statin drugs, it figures that more than a few people would have trouble sticking with the program.

More than a few, actually.

A big new study of statin use in the real world found that 17 percent of patients taking the pills reported side effects, including muscle pain, nausea, and problems with their liver or nervous system.

That's a lot higher than the 5 to 10 percent reported in the randomized controlled trials that provided evidence for regulatory approval of the medicines.

This , which was published in Annals of Internal Medicine, looked at more than 100,000 people who'd been prescribed statins from 2000 through 2008 at two academic medical centers.

About two-thirds of people with side effects quit taking statins. All in all, half of all the people who been prescribed the drugs quit them at last temporarily. Twenty percent quit for more than a year.

Clinical trials of statins have reported low rates of side effects. But patient surveys conducted in real-world settings have found that as many as 15 percent of patients experience side effects.

The most common side effect is muscle soreness, fatigue or weakness.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration and physicians continue to document that some patients experience fuzzy thinking and memory loss while taking statins, a class of global top-selling cholesterol-lowering drugs.