Challenging the link between statins and muscle pain, patients report no difference in aches when taking drug or placebo
Statins — among the most successful drugs ever developed — prevent deaths from heart attacks and strokes but have long been dogged by the notion that they also cause muscle pain in some people. Now that belief has been called into question by a new study.
The trial asked older patients who stopped taking statins (or were considering doing so) because of pain to go back on the drug or take a placebo. Crucially, they didn’t know which they were getting, and there was no difference in the aches and pains people reported.
