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Essay / The effectiveness of using statins in treatment
All drugs have certain advantages and side effects. The most common side effect associated with statins is muscle pain. It is due to particular concern about a link between statins and a potentially fatal muscle disease called rhabdomyolysis. Many articles have looked at the prevalence of this phenomenon and found it to be 1 in 10,000 to 100,000. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on “Why Violent Video Games Should Not Be Banned”? Get an original essay In terms of general muscle soreness and statin use, as well as other side effects such as nausea, insomnia, and fatigue, a 2014 review of statins Studies have been conducted and examined the experiences of 83,000 people and concluded that almost all of the symptoms reported occurred just as frequently when patients received the placebo 2 – in other words, the statin was not responsible. Statins, however, may be incriminated in two areas: first, drugs are given to 3% of patients whose liver enzymes have increased, and second, the rate of diabetes is slightly higher in patients taking statins (3%) than in those taking a placebo (2.4%)2. In asymptomatic patients, it is unclear whether increased liver enzymes are harmful, but many people naturally increase liver enzymes due to obesity or alcohol consumption, and in many cases, results are dose dependent, such that a decrease in statin dose results in normalization of liver enzymes. When it comes to diabetes, the study found that only 1 in 5 new diabetes diagnoses could be directly attributed to taking a statin. Although diabetes itself is a major risk factor for cardiovascular disease, the beneficial effect of statins on the cardiovascular system still appears to outweigh the risk posed by potentially triggering diabetes. The controversy In 2014, the UK's healthcare watchdog, NICE, published guidelines. suggesting that the threshold for offering an individual a statin should be reduced from a 20% risk of a cardiovascular event in the next 10 years to 10%. The risk percentage is calculated using a tool called QRISK2, which takes into account many factors, including age, blood pressure, smoking and cholesterol. Statins have demonstrated benefit in high-risk patients with established coronary artery disease, but concerns have been raised that in low-risk populations the risk of side effects and people becoming good health in “patients” outweighed the potential benefit. However, the 2012 report found that "reducing LDL cholesterol with statin therapy significantly reduced the risk of major vascular events in individuals with a 5-year risk less than 10%, even in those who had no history of vascular disease”1. Much controversy has also been created over statins and whether or not they are linked to dementia. It has been suggested that confusion, memory loss and dementia are possible consequences of statin treatment, but reports have been highly variable, making it difficult to draw a true conclusion. In 2000, two studies reported a lower risk of dementia in people using statins, but subsequent reports published mixed results, including favorable, unfavorable and : 2014