Lipitor Neurological Side Effect: Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis, Alzheimer's

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Lipitor and other statin drugs are well known for their degradation of muscle tissues and the sometimes excruciating pain that comes with this. What is less well known is that the progression of this muscle wasting side effect may lead to a diagnosis of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), also called Lou Gehrig's disease or motor neurone disease, described as a chronic, progressive, almost invariably fatal neurological disease.

Duane 'Spacedoc' Graveline, author of Statin Drugs Side Effects: the misguided war on cholesterol

Statins are the absolute best sellers in the pharmaceutical armamentarium against "high cholesterol" which in itself is not a disease but has been heavily promoted as an indication of future cardiovascular trouble.

The use of these drugs is associated with serious side effects, most prominent is a degeneration of the muscular tissue and debilitating pain that comes with it. If you have any doubt whatsoever about this, please read two earlier articles on this site:

Lipitor - The Human Cost

and

Lipitor: Side Effects And Natural Remedy

Quite apart from the damning information in the articles themselves, you will see that literally hundreds of readers have added accounts of their personal experiences of the side effects of the statin drugs they are taking.

This can no longer be put this down to lack of information about the effects of these drugs. The pharmaceutical producers are hooked on the billions they are making and are doing everything possible to make the FDA and other regulatory agencies look the other way. Doctors are largely being kept in the dark as well. Perhaps you can help to bring the carnage to an end by copying this article plus the two earlier ones and making your doctor pay attention. There is little hope that the FDA or any other regulatory agency will act as long as the pharma manufacturers say that "everything's ok". We need a doctors' revolt.

But let's take a closer look now at nerve degeneration as a possible statin side effect. Duane Graveline, who is a former NASA scientist and astronaut as well as a medical doctor, has an explanation for the neurological effects of statins and it's not just theoretical. He has encountered many cases that suggest this is really happening.

Read his report here, including several accounts of ALS patients:

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ALS AND STATINS: EPIDEMIC?

Another case just reported to me of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) associated with the use of statin drugs. Only a year ago the numbers of case reports of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis reported to my repository was a trickle - now it is a relative flood. There is not the slightest doubt in my mind that the numbers of reports I am seeing now are far more than usually expected in a group the size of my reporting population. One naturally wonders about this curious relationship with statin drugs and what the possible mechanism of action might be.

Recently a neuroscientist, V. Meske, reported in the European Journal of Neuroscience a very relevant study about the ability of statin drugs to cause neuronal degeneration. To refresh your memory statin drugs are designed to inhibit cholesterol synthesis [in the liver] by their effect on the mevalonate pathway. It seems that a consequence of the inhibitory effect of statin drugs on the mevalonate pathway is the induction of abnormal tau protein phosphorylation. Tau protein phosphorylation goes on to form neurofibrillatory tangles, long known to be the prime suspect in causing the slowly progressive neuronal degeneration of Alzheimer’s disease. Sometimes this process is accompanied by Beta amyloid deposition but more commonly not. Research scientists are now finding that this mechanism appears to be true for ALS and many other forms of neurodegenerative diseases as well. They have even coined a new word for this, the taupathies.

Statin associated taupathies or tauopathies may well be additional gross evidence of collateral damage to existing cellular chemistry that our researchers were unable to predict when they originally created the statins. All this from a class of drugs originally designed simply to inhibit the biosynthesis of cholesterol, which is a vital substance now proven to be irrelevant to the atherosclerotic process.

Very few primary care physicians are familiar with the association of statin drug use with ALS and most are disinclined to use warnings from websites such as mine about statin drug side effects, saying they are anecdotal. These “anecdotes” are the patient’s histories! Doctor Ellsworth Amidon, my Vermont College of Medicine professor of medicine, used to say, “Heed well the words of your patients, my young doctors, they are telling you the d