Sunday June 9, 2013 (foodconsumer.org) -- Using cholesterol-lowering statins may cause more than muscle pain.  A new study in JAMA Internal Medicine suggests that use of statins may cause musculoskeletal conditions, arthropathies (joint diseases) and other injuries.

Statins are well known for their efficacy in lowering cholesterol and cardiovascular disease and death in people with prior heart conditions.  Adverse effects were reported but not throughly evaluated.  The current study was intended to examine the full spectrum of statins-induced musculoskeletal adverse events (AEs) induced by statins including muscle weakness, muscle cramps and tendinous (tendon) diseases.For the study, Ishak Mansi, M.D., of the VA North Texas Health Care System in Dallas, Texas and colleagues looked at data on use of statins generated during the 2005 fiscal year from a military health care system to examine whether use of statins was really associated with musculoskeletal conditions. Included in the study were 6967 patients who had used stains for at least 90 days and 6967 people who did not use statins as controls.The researchers said that even though the full exploration of statins's musculoskeletal adverse effects may not be possible, statin users were found 19%, 13% and 9% more likely than nonusers to be diagnosed with group 1 musculoskeletal disease (all cases), group 1b musculoskeletal disease (dispocation/strain/sprain) and group 2 musculoskeletal diagnosis (musculoskeletal pain),  respectively.'To our knowledge, this is the first study, using propensity score matching, to show that statin use is associated with an increased likelihood of diagnoses of musculoskeletal conditions, arthropathies and injuries. In our primary analysis, we did not find a statistically significant association between statin use and arthropathy; however, this association was statistically significant in all other analyses," the authors concluded. "These findings are concerning because starting statin therapy at a young age for primary prevention of cardiovascular diseases has been widely advocated."Dietary supplements that provide a similar or even better efficacy in lowering cholesterol are available including red yeast rice, omega-3 fatty acids or fish oil and plant sterols. (reporting by David Liu PHD)