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Statins lower risk for adverse cardiovascular events, especially in high-risk patients. In this large prospective U.K. cohort study, investigators sought to quantify unintended effects of these widely used drugs.
Of the more than 2 million study participants (age range, 30–84), about 225,000 were new statin users: 160,000 were prescribed simvastatin, 50,000 received atorvastatin, and ≈15,000 received pravastatin, rosuvastatin, or fluvastatin. Statin use was associated significantly with lower risk for esophageal cancer and higher risks for liver dysfunction (alanine transaminase levels ≥3× upper limit of normal), myopathy (clinical diagnosis or creatinine kinase level ≥4× upper limit of normal), acute kidney failure, and cataracts; liver dys…