Crestor Side Effects Linked To Kidney Failure. Crestor has been linked to kidney damage and kidney failure. On October 22, 2004, the consumer group Public Citizen said twenty-nine patients who took AstraZeneca’s cholesterol drug Crestor developed kidney damage. Crestor has also been linked to the potentially fatal disease Rhabdomyolysis.
Consumer group, Public Citizens states, the rate of reported kidney problems is approximately 75 times higher with Crestor than with all other drugs in the same class combined. According to its analysis, there have been 6.4 reports of acute kidney failure or kidney damage for every 1 million Crestor prescriptions filled.
Crestor has been linked to numerous cases of Rhabdomyolysis, a rare muscle destroying disease. Crestor is in the popular family of cholesterol-lowering drugs called Statins. Several years ago Baycol, another popular statin drug, was banned for its link to Rhabdomyolysis.
Crestor Side Effects were Evident Before it was Approved
Crestor was approved by the FDA in August 2003, after a delay because of safety concerns. During FDA studies seven cases of the potentially fatal, muscle-destroying condition Rhabdomyolysis occurred.
These studies also linked Crestor with cases of kidney abnormalities not seen with other Statins. The FDA decided to approve Crestor but at lower dosages. However, records from the FDA and health agencies in Canada and Britain show life-threatening side effects occur even at those lower doses.
Rhabdomyolysis is a serious disorder that causes kidney damage resulting from toxic effects of the contents of muscle cells. Myoglobin is an iron-containing pigment found in the skeletal muscle. When the skeletal muscle is damaged, the Myoglobin is released into the bloodstream. It is filtered out of the bloodstream by the kidneys. Myoglobin may obstruct the structures of the kidney, causing damage such as acute tubular necrosis or kidney failure.
Taking Crestor Might Prevent the Benefits of Exercise
As a statin, Crestor is used to lower cholesterol and prevent heart disease in obese individuals. But research suggests that the supposed benefits of this medication may be counteracted by the fact that can reduce the benefits of exercise in obese patients. In May 2013, researchers at the University of Missouri conducted a study demonstrating this by analyzing 37 individuals who were obese, sedentary and had low fitness levels. The participants, between the ages of 26 and 59, were put on a 12 week exercise regimen; 18 of them took a statin such as Crestor. As it turns out, the cholesterol medication was associated with poorer outcomes. The group not taking the statins increased their cardiorespiratory fitness by an average of 10 percent compared to the 1.5 percent in the statin group. Furthermore, the group not taking statin performed significantly better when it came to skeletal muscle mitochondrial content, which is where the muscles turn oxygen into energy. In the statin group this was decreased 4.5 percent while in the exercise only group there was a 13 percent increase.
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