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Statins linked to fatigue

I knew there was a good reason I've been feeling so run down (fatigued) lately.

The truth is I've been run down ever since my diagnosis with MCL, which can mostly be attributed to a <12 g/dL hemoglobin, but lately I just seem more so.

A large part of the perceived increase in fatigue could be due to the weather, which has been unbearably hot as of late (my electric bill is going to be so high this month), plus I am getting older everyday, but in light of this report linking statin use and fatigue, I can't help but think there is a lot more to it.

As if relenting to having to take a statin for the rest of my life wasn't bad enough, now I have to deal with this information.

Maybe I could just do with a boost from some performance enhancing drugs. (See "In defense of Lance Armstrong" to the right!)
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Comments

Alan said…
The results of this study don't impress me too much.
The scale used was -2 to +2 with zero being no change in "energy". So the range of all results is 4. There are no results for just the men so if you look at the "all" group the result must be closer to zero for the men.

Even if we look at the "all" group the decrease in energy with simvastatin is .25. If we subtract the 0.06 placebo effect, we have 0.19
This equates to only a 9.5% decrease in energy.

Another problem is they didn't account for the use of CoQ10. In theory this might have eliminated the fatigue.

While the results do show statistical significance, that doesn't mean the effect is necessarily clinically important.

In any event you're are certainly in the group who would benefit from statins so I think it's a no brainer fro you to continue.
12:46 AM
Marc said…
Yeah, and there were other skeptics as well.

And now that I think about it, this is likely just another scheme by the vitamin and supplement industry to sell more CoQ10. :)
12:57 AM
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