Letter to the EditorA comparison of 25-hydroxyvitamin D serum levels among those with or without statin-associated myalgias
Section snippets
Results
Overall, 129 patients met study criteria. Fifty-seven of these patients were considered (+) SAM while 72 were (−) SAM. Differences between study groups were minimal (Table 1). An important characteristic of the (+) SAM group was the previous number of statins which resulted in musculoskeletal complaints (median 3; range of 1–6), indicating most failed multiple statins.
When analyzing serum 25-hydroxyvitamin D values we found no differences between groups. The mean serum 25-hydroxyvitamin D
Discussion
Among patients in our lipid-specialty clinic, we found that serum 25-hydroxyvitamin D levels do not differ among patients with a recent and often extensive history of SAM and those currently free of myalgias and receiving statin therapy.
It is intuitive that an association between low serum 25-hydroxyvitamin D levels and SAM is plausible in some patients, considering myalgias or muscle weakness are major manifestations of low vitamin D levels. However, our data does not support this association.
Conclusion
In our lipid-specialty clinic we found that serum 25-hydroxyvitamin D levels do not differ between patients with a recent and generally extensive history of SAM and those currently asymptomatic and receiving statin therapy. Overall our findings suggest that hypovitaminosis D is not likely to be the underlying etiology in patients with a history of SAM from multiple statins.
This research has not been presented elsewhere.
Conflict of interest
All authors report no conflict of interest as related to this work.
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