“Cholesterol Drug Use Raises Questions About Side Effects”. Wall Street Journal, January 31, 2002

          Some of the most popular drugs in the country lower cholesterol and dramatically reduce heart-attack risk. But what else do they do? As new government cholesterol standards could triple the number of people taking the drugs to 36 million, doctors and patients want more-solid information on the side effects. The class of drugs known as statins includes blockbuster brands Lipitor, Zocor and Pravachol, among others.
          Like all powerful drugs, statins have side effects. The problem is that some of the alleged side effects, such as muscle aches and memory loss, also are common complaints of the elderly. "Most people taking these drugs are older people," says New York physician Paul J. Rosch, professor of medicine and psychiatry at New York Medical College. Beatrice A. Golomb, the UCSD assistant professor of medicine leading the study, says common complaints from patients taking statins include being unable to remember the name of a grandchild, walking into a room and forgetting why you are there, or starting a sentence and being unable to finish. Some complain of personality changes or irritability.
          What is known about statins is that they can dramatically lower cholesterol, and that may be the problem when it comes to side effects. Although cholesterol has been vilified as a culprit in heart disease, it is also the most common organic molecule in the brain. Some researchers theorize that blocking cholesterol production, as statins do, interferes with the brain's performance and causes muddled thinking and memory loss. Muscle pain is an undisputed side effect of statins, although estimates on the incidence range from 5% to 30%. One statin, Baycol, was pulled from the market last year after being linked to 100 deaths from a rare muscle-wasting condition called rhabdomyolysis.
          However, the type of aching muscle pain most patients report isn't believed to be life-threatening. Paul S. Phillips, director of interventional cardiology at Scripps Mercy Hospital in San Diego, says his research shows that some of the muscle problems associated with statin therapy aren't detected by the typical enzyme screening method doctors use, and therefore are dismissed as signs of aging.