Are statins safe?

For people at meaningful cardiovascular risk, benefits clearly exceed risks. Muscle aches occur in a minority and are often not drug-related in blinded trials; serious muscle injury is rare. They slightly increase diabetes risk, which is outweighed by event reduction in appropriate patients.

In blinded trials, muscle aches occurred at similar rates on statin and placebo, suggesting many symptoms are not caused by the drug. Rechallenge or switching statin often resolves it.

True muscle injury with markedly raised CK is rare — roughly 1 in 10,000 treated per year. Persistent severe pain with weakness should be reported promptly.