Doctors crack riddle on why Statin drugs cause painful side effects

More than 92 million American adults take a statin drug to manage high blood cholesterol, but one in ten of those prescribed statins suffer muscle pain and fatigue side effects strong enough to make them quit. New research may help find ways to prevent these effects.

"I've had patients who've been prescribed statins, and they refused to take them because of the side effects," lead author Andrew Marks, a cardiologist at Columbia University, told SciTechDaily.com. "It's the most common reason patients quit statins, and it's a very real problem that needs a solution."

Along with colleagues at the University of Rochester, Marks' paper described how statins cause muscle tissue to leak calcium by interfering with a protein inside cells that stores the element crucial to muscle function. Disrupting that protein causes calcium to leak into the cell continuously, potentially damaging muscle tissue. They published their work in the Nov. 20, 2025, issue of Nature Communications.

Too much cholesterol circulating in the blood can clog arteries and increase the risk of stroke or heart attack. Statins help by blocking a liver enzyme needed to produce cholesterol, lowering low-density or ‘bad" cholesterol in the blood. They have been prescribed for almost 40 years since their discovery in the 1980s.

Low-dose statins, combined with blood pressure medication, could help people with moderate risks avoid serious complications like heart attacks or strokes, according to the American Heart Association.

The new findings offer two potential solutions to the aches and pains of statin side effects. One approach is to redesign statins so they do not affect the muscle proteins. The other is to add another drug, already under testing in mice, to help stabilize the calcium channel in these proteins.

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This story was originally published May 13, 2026 at 4:12 AM.