Short Term Memory Loss. Is Your Statin Drug the Culprit?

Short term memory loss can be devastating.

Duane Graveline, MD, MPH, a retired family doctor and former NASA astronaut, recounts his own hair-raising experience after taking the statin drug Lipitor for only six weeks.

Dr. Graveline was found wandering, confused, and afraid to enter his own home because he didn't recognize it or remember his wife's name.

Six hours later…after being examined by a neurologist and undergoing an MRI…he came to his senses. Transient global amnesia (TGA) was diagnosed.

Neither he nor his physician suspected that Lipitor caused the loss of his short term memory, so Dr. Graveline was restarted on one-half the previous dose.

The TGA returned six weeks later.

This time, he regressed to his teen-age years with no memory for his time in college, medical school, or the recent past.

"Many decades of my life were obliterated," he said. "The diagnosis of the short term memory loss was TGA: cause unknown."

To verify his growing suspicion that Lipitor might be the cause of his short term memory loss, Dr. Graveline wrote to Joe and Teresa Graedon, the husband and wife team that writes the syndicated column called The People's Pharmacy, which specializes in warning the public about drug side effects.

The Graedons asked for permission to print his letter in their column, and once it appeared, hundreds of people wrote in to say they, too, had experienced severe short term memory loss while on Lipitor.

"Patients are reluctant to report amnesia, or they attribute the symptoms to old age or early Alzheimer's," explained Dr. Graveline. "And doctors are reluctant to believe that the drug they prescribed was the cause."

Still, the official word on Lipitor is that memory loss is not a statin side effect.

"Thousands of cases of memory loss have been reported to the FDA's Medwatch program," he said, "but after two years, the agency still hasn't acted. And most practicing physicians are unaware of the problem."

Lipitor is not the only statin linked to loss of memory, observed Dr. Graveline.

A reporter pointed out to that FDA-required trials do not report memory loss in people taking statins.

Joel M. Kaufman, PhD, research professor of chemistry and biochemistry at the University of the Sciences in Philadelphia offered an explanation.

"In drug trials, the pharmaceutical companies often divide similar adverse effects into six or seven categories to keep the scarier side effects under 1%."

To illustrate his point, Dr. Kaufman said that amnesia could be divided into confusion, memory loss, senility, and cognitive impairment. Other interchangeable terms are dementia and early Alzheimers symptoms.

Lipitor is not the only statin drug linked to short term memory loss, muscle pain, weakness, fatigue and peripheral neuropathy. Crestor, Vytorin, Zocor, Zetia and other statin drugs have similar side effects.

With a little distance from his harrowing TGA experience, Dr. Graveline said that he began to question why he took Lipitor in the first place.

"I had come to think of high cholesterol as my personal enemy…cholesterol levels had climbed despite a fat-restricted diet, but no one mentions the proper function of cholesterol in the body."

"We doctors march to the low-fat, low-cholesterol band."

The brain and heart are our most important organs, and what is good for one is good for the other. If you happen to be one of those who are taking a statin drug and want to avoid short term memory loss, and lower your risk of having a heart attack at the same time, I recommend the Doctors Heart Cure by Al Sears, M.D.

May your Brain be nimble brain be quick.
Quicker than lightning...never missing a trick!

Gene

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