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HomeFocusBMJ weighs withdrawal of articles as statin controversy heats up

BMJ weighs withdrawal of articles as statin controversy heats up

Everyone over the age of 40 should take cholesterol-busting statins. The [s]Daily Mail[/s] reports that this is according to UK heart surgeon, Professor Sir Magdi Yacoub of [b]Imperial College London[/b], who said the benefits of the controversial drugs ‘massively’ outweigh the risks and to not make them more widely available is ‘lunacy’. He also believes statins should be available without a prescription. Statins are credited with saving thousands of lives a year by preventing heart attacks and strokes, but now a row is raging about their side effects. Parts of an article in the [s]British Medical Journal[/s] that claimed the cholesterol-lowering drugs cause side-effects such as liver and kidney disease and diabetes in one in five patients, were withdrawn, following repeated criticism from an [b]Oxford University[/b] academic that the risks had been exaggerated up to 20-fold. Sir Rory Collins said the figure is actually one in 100 and described the published claims as a ‘huge error’.

The two articles in question are to be investigated and could be retracted by the [s]BMJ[/s]. [s]BBC News[/s] reports that experts fear the articles, which were widely reported in October, will have discouraged people from taking statins. [s]BMJ[/s] editor-in-chief Dr Fiona Godlee said it was publicising the withdrawal of the side-effects figures ‘so that patients who could benefit from statins are not wrongly deterred … because of exaggerated concerns over side effects’. Commenting, Professor Peter Weissberg, medical director of the [b]British Heart Foundation[/b], said: ‘Statins are an important weapon in the fight against heart disease and it is essential that trusted medical journals like the [s]BMJ[/s] do not mislead the public.’ Medical experts have debated whether the use of statins should be extended to people with a ‘low-risk’ of heart disease, after a study by the [b]University of Oxford[/b] in 2012 concluded that people with a low-risk of heart problems would benefit from statins.

The author of one of the articles, Dr Aseem Malhotra, has hit out at Collins, accusing him of taking ‘a biased view’, reports [s]The Independent[/s]. Malhotra pointed out that Collins’ research unit ‘received millions in research funding from the pharmaceutical industry’. He also claimed that Collins lacked the perspective of ‘front-line doctors’. The report says, however, that Malhotra’s claim that 20% of patients suffered side effects was based on an uncontrolled study, in which it was not clear whether the adverse events had occurred as a result of statins or other factors.

High cholestrol may also affect ability to become pregnant, a new study suggests, reports [s]The Huffington Post[/s]. Researchers at the [b]Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development[/b] found that free cholesterol levels in men and women were higher, on average, among couples that did not become pregnant during the 12-month study than among couples that did conceive. One limitation of the study is that researchers had no data on participants' diets, which can influence lipid levels. However, they hope to include dietary measures in future studies.

[link url=http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-2632287/All-40s-cholesterol-busting-statins-says-surgeon.html]Full Daily Mail report [/link]
[link url=http://www.bbc.com/news/health-27420100]Full BBC News report[/link]
[link url=http://www.bmj.com/content/348/bmj.g3306]British Medical Journal editorial[/link]
[link url=http://www.ox.ac.uk/media/science_blog/120517.html]Oxford University study[/link]
[link url=http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/health-and-families/health-news/statins-row-critics-are-biased-says-doctor-who-warned-of-drugs-sideeffects-9388337.html]Full report in The Independent[/link]
[link url=http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/05/21/high-cholesterol-makes-getting-pregnant-harder_n_5367890.html]Full report in The Huffington Post[/link]
[link url=http://press.endocrine.org/doi/abs/10.1210/jc.2013-3936?queryID=24%2F104239]Endocrinology abstract[/link]

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