more good news on statins

In the Journal of Pathology 210: 94-102, 2006, Draeger A and others of the University of Bern, Switzerland reported that statin therapy induces ultrastructural damage in skeletal muscle in almost every patient and often without myalgia.

Draeger’s group did skeletal muscle biopsies from statin treated and non-statin treated patients and examined them using electron microscopy and biochemical approaches. They reported clear evidence of skeletal muscle damage in statin treated patients despite their being asymptomatic.

Although the degree of overall damage was minimal, it was the characteristic pattern of damage, including rupture of critical structures that caught the attention of the investigators. These findings support the hypothesis that statin induced cholesterol lowering per se contributes to myocyte damage and suggests further that it is the specific lipid / protein organs of the skeletal muscle itself that renders it particularly vulnerable.