Statins - Times

Buachaille

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Doctors are increasingly relying on large doses of cheap, non-branded medicines to control heart disease, despite concerns about their use.
A rise in the prescribing of generic statins helped to cut total drug spending in England by £50 million last year. But GPs warned that the growing use of high-dose simvastatin could be inappropriate for some patients or increase the risk of side-effects.
More than four million Britons regularly take statins to control cholesterol, with 80 per cent using the cheapest generic pill, simvastatin, which costs just £1.42 a month.
Prescribing rates for simvastatin rose by 15 per cent last year, according to figures from the NHS Information Centre.
Recent evidence suggests that newer, branded versions, such as Lipitor (atorvastatin), and Crestor (rosuvastatin), though more expensive, are more effective at lowering chloesterol at reduced doses, and have fewer side-effects, such as muscle pain, sleep problems or weight gain.
A 40mg daily dose of simvastatin was the most commonly prescribed statin last year, accounting for 18.8 million prescriptions in 2008. But there was a 16 per cent increase in prescriptions of the drug in 80mg doses, which could be used when patients switch over from a more potent branded drug, GP newspaper reports.
A total of 346,800 prescriptions were made for 80mg simvastatin in 2008 – despite an increased risk of side-effects reported last year in a study of more than 12,000 heart-attack survivors.
The SEARCH trial, based at the University of Oxford, showed that high-dose simvastatin produced only a small additional reduction in low-density lipoprotein (LDL) cholesterol compared with a 20mg dose, but increased the risk of myopathy, the severe muscle pain and weakness which can lead to more serious health problems.
Generic medicines are used far more widely in Britain than in many EU countries, and helped to reduce total spending on medicines in England from £8.37 billion in 2007 to £8.32 billion for 2008, despite 46 million more prescriptions being issued last year.
The biggest increase in prescribing was in drugs for heart disease, which is the most common cause of death in Britain.
Overall, 33.8 million prescriptions were issued for simvastatin in 2008 – an increase of 15.3 per cent on 2007.
During the same period, prescribing of rosuvastatin increased by only 4.5 per cent, while prescribing of atorvastatin fell by 4 per cent. Rates of another generic drug, pravastatin, rose by 1.8 per cent.
Generic drugs are no longer protected by patent, so they can be copied by other manufacturers at a lower cost.
Peter Weissberg, medical director of the British Heart Foundation, broadly welcomed the change in prescribing patterns.
“There is a risk of chloresterol levels getting worse if GPs are swapping like-for-like dosages, as simvastatin is weaker than branded varients,” he said. “If patients are concerned that they have been swapped from a branded statin to a generic one, they should just ask their GP to check whether their chloresterol has got worse since the change. If it hasn’t, then the message is ‘don’t worry’ and if it has, you should ask your GP to do something about it.”
 

rosibud68

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i have been on simvastatins for abour 7 years long before i was diagnosed with type 2 diabetis and my colesterol was ok but since i have had diabetis i have been having ground flax seed on my breakfast cereal this has lowerd my colesterol still more and i am now thinking of asking my doctor if i can come of statins what do you think rosibud68
 

sixfoot

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I used to be on Simvastatin but got the muscle pains so they pushed me onto Lipitor but havnt been keen on taking that.