Statin Drugs Cause Amnesia, Behavioral Disorders and Cognitive Loss
Duane Graveline, a former astronaut and medical doctor is one of the few 'lone voices' warning of the side effects of statin drug use. His website spacedoc.net probably has more information on statin drug side effects than any other place on the internet.
Duane 'Spacedoc' Graveline, author of Statin Drugs Side Effects: the misguided war on cholesterol
Doc Graveline has now released some more of his research into the side effects of cholesterol lowering drugs. These medicines, which are the biggest sellers in the history of our human pharmaceutical experiment, interfere with the body's ability to produce cholesterol in the liver, and not only that. By suppressing a vital metabolic pathway, they interfere in cholesterol production but also in the synthesis of Coenzyme Q 10 as well as in the synthesis of dolichols, selenoproteins and other important substances.We have been told for years that cholesterol is bad, or alternatively that there is good cholesterol and bad cholesterol, but always the message has been that we need to avoid cholesterol like the plague. We must do everything to lower this indictor of trouble. Unfortunately that is very misleading, because cholesterol is a vital substance our bodies need to function properly, and rather than the cause of heart trouble it is merely an indicator that something else is wrong and that the body needs more cholesterol to detox.
The side effects that come with our interfering in an important metabolic pathway are grave and at times extremely painful. Muscle pains are reported by large numbers of users. You only need to read the comments readers of this site have posted at the end of this article about LIPITOR, one of the cholesterol lowering statin drugs. The dissolution of muscle tissue is not only painful, it can lead to kidney overload and eventual death by rhabdomyolysis. But another class of side effects that comes with the use of statin drugs are cognitive degeneration, amnesia and uncharacteristic behavior, such as aggressive or destructive reactions that need little or no external provocation.
Why are those drugs still on the market after years of documented side effects?
They are big business for the pharmaceutical companies that make them, blockbusters that bring in literally billions of dollars every year. No matter the suffering they bring - or the perfectly useless nature of 'cholesterol goals' doctors are told to push their patients to reach.
The important question seems to be to me whether good business for the pharmaceutical industry is really worth the destruction of our health and the suffering and degradation of our quality of life inflicted by these drugs.
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Here are three short papers by Doc Duane Graveline on mental and cognitive "side"-effects of statin drugs.
COGNITIVE LOSS FROM STATIN USEAlthough the attacks of transient global amnesia that I experienced from my introduction to statin drugs were unforgettable and much more responsive to media attention, the more pervasive effect of statins on the entire memory process is far more important to me in my challenge to inform both doctors and patients about statin drug cognitive damage. No one has said it better than Muldoon and no one is better qualified to say it than Muldoon – “there is demonstrable cognitive loss in 100% of statin users”.
Twice Muldoon has demonstrated this effect and twice he has published in the medical literature and yet we still have practicing physicians who are completely ignorant of this part of statin’s legacy. The reason, unfortunately, is largely because our physicians are far too busy to read the medical literature and far too often tend to get their information about statins from the persuasive drug “reps”. Our drug companies have much to gain by telling busy doctors only what they want them to know. That is the job of the “reps”. I doubt there is one rep in the thousands out there who has ever related concern about statin associated cognitive loss to the doctor. The numbers of transient global amnesia attacks associated with statin drug use, the compelling research results of men like Muldoon and the legions of our elderly in assisted living and nursing homes who are transformed almost immediately into progressive dementia patients by their statins are things better left unsaid by our drug “reps”.
Does the drug company know of this? Have they been keeping up with the adverse drug reports? Of course the drug companies know of this particular side effect of statins. It was first brought out 12 years ago during the clinical evaluation phase of Lipitor. This is the first time Lipitor was used on humans. 2,503 volunteers participated in this part of Lipitor testing. Of this number, seven experienced transient global amnesia attacks on Lipitor and four more reported severe memory impairment for a total of 11 cases of cognitive impairment out of 2503 subjects, or a case rate of about 5/1,000. Not one word of this was ever transmitted to the public. Think of the marketing effect of admitting that out of every 1,000 people taking this drug, five could expect severe cognitive effects. Think of the impact on CEOs, presidents, pilots, heavy equipment operators and school bus drivers. This is why, when I first reported this to FAA in 2000, they were allowing commercial airline pilots to fly on statins because, “They did not know statins could do that.” And at the Pentagon where fighter pilots were allowed to fly with statins, the flight surgeons there, “did not know that statins could do that.” Yes, management knows and management has been attempting to keep this information hidden as long as it can because untold billions of dollars are at stake.
The "Why" of statin drug cognitive damage had to await Frank Pfrieger's research results first released in 2003. Pfrieger found that cholesterol was vital to synaptic function in the brain and was produced by our glial cells for this purpose. Ordinary blood cholesterol is not available to the brain because when combined with lipoprotein, the resulting molecule is too large to pass our blood brain barrier, so we have evolved this glial cell mechanism to support synaptic function. Glial cells are just as susceptible to statins as any other cell in our body and we finally had an explanation for why Muldoon was right. In the absence of sufficient cholesterol, cognitive functions must suffer. One hundred per cent of statin users have demonstrable cognitive loss!
The reason many of us are not aware of this is because we are not precise creatures. Although our computers are precise, we humans forget. It is part of our inherent makeup. We can lose 10% of our capacity and never bat an eye, lost in the background of daily “forgets”, the best we can do.
Duane Graveline MD MPH
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BEHAVIOR AND PERSONALITY DISORDER FROM STATINS
“My husband was prescribed Vytorin 3 months ago and has been experiencing severe side-effects from it. Within a month of taking this drug, his personality began changing. He has become easily agitated, and he is growing more and more hostile and aggressive when upset. Frankly, I don't like the person he has become. He is paranoid, unable to focus clearly, has no sexual interest and does not remember many things that I have told him. After reading the content on your website and several others, I am convinced that Vytorin is toxic to his system.”This is now a very common story in my repository of statin drug side effects from victims all over the world. From aggression, irritability, hostility, paranoia, homicidal ideation, road rage-like behavior, depression and suicidal ideation, all share one thread – that of neuropeptide synthesis, the magic peptide strand that makes us what we are and governs of every action. Imagine, every thought, every sensation and every emotion you have ever experienced governed by the makeup of proteins and sugars on a growing peptide strand.
Deep in the cells of all of us are tiny factories responsible for this function. Henry Ford has come to the ER (endoplasmic reticulum), for that is what this micro-assembly line resembles. Within these tubules are deposited protein after protein, the type and placement of each protein made supercritical by the insertion, here and there, of a certain kind of sugar that will tell the growing protein strand just where to fold and in what direction. The protein strand has become a glycoprotein strand with a far more complex range of possibilities as to how the final molecule looks – and structure determines function. A twist here or right angle there makes all the difference between anger and blind, berserker anger or love and passionate love.
From the ER the completed peptide strand now called a neuropeptide, passes into the so-called Golgi apparatus (named after an Italian scientist) where it is packaged into a vesicle and carried down the nerves to storage centers near the synapses until needed.
Now comes our statin drug a.k.a. reductase inhibitor to do its number on the reductase step of our vital mevalonate pathway. Unfortunately, interference at this point inhibits not only cholesterol but also CoQ10, dolichols, selenoproteins and other important functions using the same pathway. It is the dolichols that are involved in the neuropeptide assembly. Imagine what would happen if we suddenly had only one-half of our normal dolichol supply? This is almost certainly the mechanism for the behavioral side effects of statins.
Our entire process of neuropeptide formation, our ER assembly line, is orchestrated by dolichols. Suddenly this entire system becomes disturbed and most of our doctors have not the slightest idea of this potential for statin effect, and this is not just some one in a million sensitivity reaction, this tendency is inevitable with statin use. And the severity of symptoms can vary from just barely detectable to homicides and suicides.
CoQ10 deficiency associated with statin use is beginning to be understood by doctors in our country but statins and personality change is a complete mystery and usually it is “off to the psychiatrist”, who doesn’t understand it a bit better!
Duane Graveline MD MPH
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408 CASES OF LIPITOR AMNESIA ON MEDWATCHA review of Medwatch data from the period of 11/03/97 to 4/27/07 reveals 408 case reports of amnesia associated with Lipitor use. Prior to this time Wagstaff and others had reviewed available Medwatch data from November 1997 to September 2002. They gleaned 60 cases of transient global amnesia associated with the use of Lipitor, Zocor and Pravachol and reported their findings in Pharmacotherapy in August of 2003. Pravachol contributed only one case to this total, the remaining cases were equally divided between Lipitor and Zocor.
Subtracting Wagstaff’s 60 cases from the 408 obtained from my recent Medwatch review gives 348 new cases of Lipitor associated amnesia reported to Medwatch since September 2002. A very rough estimate of total statin associated amnesia cases could be obtained by doubling this figure, based upon Wagstaff’s original data about Zocor and additional cases from other statins (Mevacor, Lescol, Crestor, Pravachol and Vytorin aka Zocor). So 700 would be a very conservative estimate of all statin associated amnesia reports at this time.
When one takes into consideration the well-known fact that only a small percentage of adverse side effects are reported to Medwatch, this already considerable figure could reach a truly impressive level if it contained all cases. Many researchers feel that fewer than 1% of statin side effects are reported. Others feel to figure is closer to 10%. At 1% our 700 become 70,000 and at 10% our 700 becomes 7,000 – either figure entirely adequate to get some sort of response from FDA. We are not talking urinary retention or anxiety here, we are talking amnesia, eradication, more or less, of your mind. Shouldn’t this get greater consideration in our society, like a black box warning so that doctors will understand what we are dealing with? Or is there some other factor here, related to the fact that since 2004, the drug companies are paying for their own drug safety monitoring. This is Medwatch, our government’s protective umbrella, supposedly shielding us from adverse post-marketing drug events, but actually completely subservient to the drug companies in that money for Medwatch salaries comes from drug company pockets.
And to think about how little of this information is known to the practicing physicians. Not a day goes by that I do not get a report or two from doctors saying, “I didn’t know statins could do that.” And this is seven years after my own experience with Lipitor associated amnesia. “Statins don’t do that” was a refrain I heard over and over again from both doctors and pharmacists as I sought answers to my two statin associated amnesias. During the first episode at 10 mg daily, I retrograded back ten years and, for six hours, knew neither my new wife nor my new home. In my second case at 5 mg daily, I was 13 years of age for 12 terrifying hours and laughed hysterically when they told me I was married with children and a family doctor. I was 13!
A few months ago I attended a shipboard medical seminar where the fully credentialed cardiologist who was giving the credit course told me he had never seen a case of memory problems or amnesia in someone on a statin drug. He was amazed and completely unreceptive when I gave him a few statistics. And what about huge clinical studies wherein thousands of participants are placed on today’s heroic doses of statins with nary a problem according to the investigators. Pfizer’s own statistics tell us to expect five cases of amnesia for every one thousand statin users. Who is doing the monitoring of these studies for side effects? What questions are being asked? If neither doctor nor patient knows that memory lapses are possible in a statin user how often will it be reported? I can only surmise that cognitive side effects from statin drug use are not being seen because they are not being looked for.
Duane Graveline MD MPH
For more information on statin drug side effects see Duane Graveline's spacedoc.net
See also:
Cholesterol metabolism links early- and late-onset Alzheimer's disease
In fact, the brain needs a high level of cholesterol, according to Bu. "The brain represents only about 2 percent of your body weight, but actually has about 20 percent of your body's cholesterol," Bu says. "There is strong evidence that cholesterol is important for synaptic function and is an essential component of cell membranes in the brain, and I believe partial defects in the regulation of cholesterol metabolism in the brain likely contribute to the development of Alzheimer's."Past research by others implies that neural synapses, the junctions that nerves use to send impulses and communicate, are particularly sensitive to cholesterol levels and that interfering with cholesterol transport and metabolism could cause loss of synapses and degeneration of nerves.
If "interfering with cholesterol transport and metabolism" is detrimental to brain function and can cause loss of synapses and degeneration of nerves, perhaps taking statin drugs, whose only function is to interfere with the liver's endogenous production of cholesterol, is not such a good idea...First comprehensive paper on statins' adverse effects released
"Muscle problems are the best known of statin drugs' adverse side effects," said Golomb. "But cognitive problems and peripheral neuropathy, or pain or numbness in the extremities like fingers and toes, are also widely reported." A spectrum of other problems, ranging from blood glucose elevations to tendon problems, can also occur as side effects from statins.
posted by Sepp Hasslberger on Tuesday August 14 2007
updated on Thursday November 25 2010URL of this article:
http://www.newmediaexplorer.org/sepp/2007/08/14/statin_drugs_cause_amnesia_behavioral_disorders_and_cognitive_loss.htm
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