Statinstics

An interesting little chain cropped up the past couple of weeks in the world of statins, the wonder drug for lowering cholesterol. Highland Health Board apparently instructed all the GPs in their area (which, dear reader, includes Dunoon these days) to change the prescription of all their patients currently on statins to one Simvastatin. Dutifully, GPs sent out letters enclosing a new prescription with the info that this from now on would be what they'd get. They dressed it up politely, of course, but it read pretty finally. And it was only if you were savvy enough and pushy enough to complain that you would be able to go on taking the drugs which suited you and to which you had become accustomed. (The letter didn't say this, of course, but it is so.) My pic is of one of the varieties which have fewer disagreeable effects.

Yesterday's Herald carried a piece about statins which contained the following statement:

A recent study of statins by US scientists linked one such drug, simvastatin, to sleep disruption that they claimed could lead to aggression and weight gain. One of the cheapest statins on the market, simvastatin is used by more than one million Britons and is available over the counter under the name Zocor Heart-Pro.

The mind boggles at the thought of the Highlands being over-run by aggressive, overweight insomniacs. I shall not be joining them.