Publication:

Statin therapy and Vitamin D

Background Statins are well-known drugs used in dyslipidemia and cardiac disorders since several years. Recently, it has been reported that long-term use of statins reduce serum vitamin D level. When statins are administered to patients with low vitamin D more muscular side effects have been reported. On the contrary, a few studies report that statins might increase vitamin D level competing with its metabolism. Hence, this study was conducted to evaluate the association between statins and vitamin D.

Methods 125 participants who fulfilled the selection criteria were enrolled in the study. 65 subjects belonged to control group and 60, statin group. The blood sample was collected for Vitamin D estimation. The results were correlated with a demographic profile, nature of statin and the muscular side effects and compared with control group.

Results The mean vitamin D level in statin group was 15.82 ng/ml±11.51 and 20.57 ng/ml±7.007 in the control group. The difference was found to be statistically significant.  13.85% in the control group and 10% in statin group had sufficient vitamin D level. 18.33% and 36.92 % had insufficient levels and 71.67% and 49.23% had a deficiency in the statin and control groups respectively.  Myalgia was reported by 30 among 60 subjects (50%) in statin group and 5 among 65 subjects (7.69%) in the control group.

Conclusion The present study has shown that statin therapy is associated with low vitamin D level and that this could contribute to the increased incidence of myalgia in the statin group.