Is Your Statin Drug Killing You?

Is your statin drug placing you in mortal danger? Unfortunately, it could be setting you up for heart failure as well as other conditions, including a deadly form of kidney disease. Many doctors believe high cholesterol is a main component of heart disease, and view cholesterol-lowering statins as life-saving drugs. Other physicians, however, report an increase in chronic heart failure which they connect with statins.

One doctor fighting to unmask the dangers of statins is board-certified Texas cardiologist Peter H. Langsjoen. "Statins kill people — lots of people — and they wound many, many more," Langsjoen wrote in an introduction to a citizen's petition filed with the FDA. Ten years ago, Dr. Langsjoen and other experts requested that the FDA require that statin drugs be labeled with a warning that they deplete the body of coenzyme Q10.

"All patients taking statins become depleted in coenzyme Q10 (CoQ10) eventually — those patients who start with relatively low CoQ10 levels (the elderly and patients with heart failure) begin to manifest signs/symptoms of CoQ10 deficiency relatively rapidly — in 6 to 12 months," he wrote. "Younger, healthier people can tolerate statins for several years before getting into trouble with fatigue, muscle weakness and soreness (usually with normal muscle enzyme CPK tests), and most ominously — heart failure."

http://www.newsmaxhealth.com/headline_health/statin_drug_kill/2012/03/29/442351.html