|
|
Article: Statins' Nerve Problems; Lipid Drugs Linked to Rare Neurological Ills
- Article from:
- The Washington Post
- Article date:
- September 3, 2002
- Author:
CopyrightThis material is published under license from the Washington Post. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Washington Post. (Hide copyright information)
|
Cholesterol-lowering drugs called statins have been hailed as an
enormous advance in the treatment of heart disease and stroke,
medications so beneficial that some doctors have jokingly suggested
putting them in the water supply.
But a recent large study by Danish physicians has cast the drugs
taken by 16 million Americans in a less favorable light.
Researchers who studied 500,000 residents of Denmark -- about 9
percent of that country's population -- found that people who took
statins were more likely to develop a form of nerve damage called
polyneuropathy than those who never took the drugs. Polyneuropathy,
also known as peripheral neuropathy, is characterized by weakness,
tingling and ...