Opening another door to heart disease
At a recent meeting of the American Heart Association, research results were discussed about a class of statins that could cause sleep disruptions. Researchers are saying that if you take simvastatin and are having difficulty sleeping—you may want to talk to your doctor about making a switch.
Compared with other options in the "statin" class, simvastatin was specifically found to significantly reduce the quality of sleep in study participants.
The study included over 1,000 men and postmenopausal women who were given either a dose of simvastatin, a dose of pravastatin, or placebo.
At the beginning of the study, all participants had an LDL cholesterol level ranging between 115 to 190 mg/dl. Somewhere in this broad range is where mainstream docs start to push for patients to take a statin. None of the participants were already taking a statin, nor did they have any existing heart disease.
To further level out the playing field, sleep issues were reported to be equivalent among the three different groups.
The study was conducted over six months. While sleep quality suffered during that time for all of the participants, the group on simvastatin had it worst of all. The researchers, using a scale that measured the degree of sleep problems, found that those on simvastatin had what they considered to be a significant difference compared to those on pravastatin.
While all statin-taking participants reported worse sleep than when they started, the reason was unclear as to why this particular class of statins caused the greatest effect.
But there's a theory. Simvastatin is the most lipophilic of the whole statin class, which means that it's fat-soluble. This would give it the edge in crossing the blood-brain barrier, free to destabilize and wreak havoc on your delicate brain cell membranes. And study results bear this out, finding that those sleep problems led to an overall tiredness, feelings of irritability and problems with cognition.
The whole matter is subject to further study, so by no means is this the last you'll hear about it.
I don't think it makes sense to have you try to cure one ailment to the detriment of the rest of your body. Especially if it's an "ailment" that has been overblown to the point of being ridiculous, the way the "cholesterol problem" has been. Some say it's one of the biggest medical issues around. I say it's actually one of the best marketing schemes.
It's also important to pay attention to the way you feel on these drugs. If you're sleep is suffering, it could be the drug causing it.
If you're on a "statin" and experiencing sleep problems—in itself a heart disease risk—talk to your doctor about making a switch and if possible, make that a switch completely off of it.
