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Longevity Atlas
Mostly false

„Statins cause muscle pain in most users and wreck the liver.”

The SAMSON trial (2020) gave the same patients statin, placebo and nothing in rotation: 90% of symptoms appeared on placebo too (nocebo effect). A meta-analysis of blinded RCTs (n=154,664) puts statin-caused muscle symptoms at ~1% of users, mostly in the first year. Serious liver injury is <1 case per million users. What's true: type 2 diabetes risk rises about 10% (NNH ≈ 250), which the cardiovascular benefit outweighs several times over.

Sources

  1. Cholesterol Treatment Trialists' Collaboration. Effect of statin therapy on muscle symptoms: an individual participant data meta-analysis. Lancet (2022) ↗
  2. Wood FA et al. N-of-1 trial of a statin, placebo, or no treatment to assess side effects – SAMSON. NEJM (2020) ↗

Last reviewed: 6 September 2026

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