Statins: How the drug prevents heart attacks and strokes
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Statins are a type of medication that lowers the amount of ‘bad’ cholesterol in the blood. They are usually diagnosed to lower patients’ risk of having a deadly heart attack or stroke. But do stations make you gain weight?
There are five different types of statins medication available on the NHS, including atorvastatin and fluvastatin.
They’re an essential treatment for patients with high cholesterol levels.
Having high cholesterol can be incredibly dangerous, and may subsequently lead to arteries becoming very narrow.
Narrow arteries makes it increasingly difficult for blood to easily flow around the body, raising the risk of heart disease and strokes.
Do statins make you gain weight?
Weight gain isn’t an official side effect of statins, according to the NHS.
But, some scientists have warned that it may be a repercussion of some other side effects.
For example, muscle aches may make patients less likely to get out and exercise.
A 10-year study from 2014 revealed that patients were also more likely to eat fatty foods and increase their calorie consumption while taking statins.
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Lead author of the story, Dr Takehiro Sugiyama from Tokyo University, urged doctors to remind patients how important it is to eat a healthy diet.
The medication is used to reduce the health risks associated with high cholesterol.
Patients taking statins shouldn’t be empowered to simply “put butter on their steaks”, he said.
“Further expansion of statin use may result in more statin users not following dietary recommendations.”
Statins side effects
The most common reported side effect of statins is muscle pain, according to the Mayo Clinic.
Your muscles may feel sore, weak and achy, and it can make living your everyday life difficult.
But severe muscle damage is extremely rare, and there are usually some ways to work around the side effects.
Statins patients have also reported excessive cramping, stiffness and tenderness.
Common side effects include:
headache
dizziness
feeling sick
feeling unusually tired or physically weak
digestive system problems, such as constipation, diarrhoea, indigestion or farting
muscle pain
sleep problems
low blood platelet count
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