New Findings Point to Crestor Being More Dangerous Than Other Statins

For the past year, Crestor, a statin drug originally approved to treat high cholesterol, has been increasingly used in people who don’t have a cholesterol problem as a way to prevent heart attacks or strokes. The U.S. Food & Drug Administration (FDA) approved the new Crestor indication regardless of the possibility of experiencing Crestor side effects,  last February, after reviewing a clinical study which showed a small reduction of strokes, heart attacks and other “cardiovascular events” among people taking the statin, compared with patients taking a placebo. The study was paid for by Astra Zeneca, the maker of Crestor. It has recently been shown that high-dose use of Crestor and other similar cholesterol drugs can increase the risk of developing diabetes, according to the findings of a new study.

Studies have brought to light serious side effects of Crestor. These include liver damage, kidney damage, diabetes and Crestor rhabdomyolysis. Critics

of the FDA’s decision worried that the risks of giving Crestor to healthy people outweighed it benefits. In fact, the same month the FDA approved wider use of Crestor, a study published in The Lancet found that treating healthy people with statins like Crestor could raise a person’s risk of developing Type 2 diabetes by nine percent. The report analyzed 13 different studies about statin drugs, one of which showed a 25 percent increased risk in developing diabetes in those who take Crestor. One of the studies analyzed by the researchers was the very study the FDA relied upon to approve the expand use of Crestor.

Though all statins carry these risks, Crestor has been shown to have the highest number of adverse cases. Another possible Crestor side effect is liver damage. Certain drugs, including cyclosporine, Warfarin, gemfibrozil, some antacids, Tagamet and others taken with Crestor may increase the risk of liver damage, as can certain foods, like grapefruit. People taking Crestor are advised to undergo periodic liver enzyme tests to avoid this risk. Type 2 diabetes has been linked to all statins as well. The FDA commissioned its own JUPITER study (Justification for the Use of Statins in Primary Prevention: an Intervention Trial Evaluating Rosuvastatin) of Crestor side effects. Patients taking Crestor developed diabetes at a much higher rate than those who took a placebo.