A NEW study backing the use of statins, amid fears thousands are dying unnecessarily through heart attacks and strokes because of scare stories, has been supported by the Lancashire Telegraph’s health expert.

Dr Tom Smith took part in the original studies to test the effectiveness of statins, from the 1970s to 1995 and was struck by the positive impact the drugs had on patients.

This was reinforced by further research in 2014, he said, which showed mortality rates among patients given statins, as opposed to those given ‘placebos’, were between 21 and 32 per cent lower.

The Telegraph health columnist has spoken out after Prof Peter Sever published a study in The Lancet, based on 10,000 patients at risk of heart and arterial diseases, seeking to disprove concerns about statins ‘side effects’.

Prof Sever’s findings were that reports of aching muscles, said to be a common side-effect of statins, were similar whether surveyed patients had been given the drug or a placebo.

He said: “There are people out there who are dying because they’re not taking statins, and the numbers are large, the numbers are tens of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands.”

The professor has dubbed it the ‘nocebo’ effect, where patients are convinced that perceived side effects become a reality.

Dr Smith said mortality rates from heart attacks had improved by around 45 per cent since the introduction of statins.

“There are huge numbers of people on statins whose lives have been saved by them,” he said.

“The difficulty is that there are people who say they are suffering side effect who are putting people off taking them.

“I have been prescribing statins for a number of years and it is very rare you see any side effects recorded.”

He estimates that around three per cent of patients may have a genuine reaction to the treatment.

If this occurs they can be given another range of drugs, called fibrates, which should carry the same benefits as statins, according to Dr Smith.

In Prof Sever’s study, 10,180 patients aged 40 to 79 from the UK, the Irish Republic and Scandinavia were involved.

Patients with high blood pressure, considered to be at risk of cardiovascular disease, were randomly assigned to treatment with a cholesterol-lowering drug, atorvastatin, or a placebo, and monitored for three years.

The trial was ‘blinded’ so that neither the patients nor the doctors treating them knew who was receiving the active drug.

In the second, non-blinded phase, 9,899 of the original participants were offered atorvastatin and followed for a further two years. Two-thirds of this group chose to continue treatment with the drug.

During the first part of the study, rates of muscle-related symptoms were similar whether or not patients received the statin or placebo. But when patients knew hey were taking statins, reports of muscle-related side effects were 41 per cent more common among those being treated.