Crestor tops list for risk of muscle-related side effects

Rosuvastatin (Crestor, AstraZeneca) had a higher risk rate for muscle-related side effects than five other leading statins in an analysis of seven years of FDA adverse case reports. Higher potency agents were associated with elevated relative risk of adverse events, according to researchers, who recommended that physicians consider potency when prescribing statins to manage cholesterol. The results were published online August 22 in PLOS One

A New Age Of Statins?

"A new study could lead millions more Americans to take cholesterol-lowering drugs and generate billions in sales for AstraZeneca, which funded it. But first comes a furious debate. The study, called Jupiter, gave either AstraZeneca's Crestor or placebo to 18,000 patients who received bad scores on a little-known blood test for C-reactive protein (CRP) that is thought to measure inflammation in the arteries. Patients who took Crestor were half as likely to have heart attacks, strokes or operations to open clogged arteries as those getting placebo, an effect that ranks among the best results seen with the two-decade old class of cholesterol drugs called statins, of which Crestor is the most potent" - Forbes