Deans' stroke musings: FDA announces new safety recommendations for high-dose simvastatin

Changing stroke rehab and research worldwide now.Time is Brain! trillions and trillions of neurons that DIE each day because there are NO effective hyperacute therapies besides tPA(only 12% effective). I have 523 posts on hyperacute therapy, enough for researchers to spend decades proving them out. These are my personal ideas and blog on stroke rehabilitation and stroke research. Do not attempt any of these without checking with your medical provider. Unless you join me in agitating, when you need these therapies they won't be there.

What this blog is for:

My blog is not to help survivors recover, it is to have the 10 million yearly stroke survivors light fires underneath their doctors, stroke hospitals and stroke researchers to get stroke solved. 100% recovery. The stroke medical world is completely failing at that goal, they don't even have it as a goal. Shortly after getting out of the hospital and getting NO information on the process or protocols of stroke rehabilitation and recovery I started searching on the internet and found that no other survivor received useful information. This is an attempt to cover all stroke rehabilitation information that should be readily available to survivors so they can talk with informed knowledge to their medical staff. It lays out what needs to be done to get stroke survivors closer to 100% recovery. It's quite disgusting that this information is not available from every stroke association and doctors group.

Wednesday, June 8, 2011

FDA announces new safety recommendations for high-dose simvastatin

The highest I ever got was 40 mg. Although you do want to read this post on statins making you stupid.
http://oc1dean.blogspot.com/2011/06/do-statins-make-you-stupid.html

The FDA change here:
http://www.foodconsumer.org/newsite/Non-food/Government/high-dose_simvastatin_0608110318.html

FDA NEWS RELEASE

For Immediate Release: June 8, 2011
Media Inquiries: Morgan Liscinsky, 301-796-0397, morgan.liscinsky@fda.hhs.gov
Consumer Inquiries: 888-INFO-FDA

FDA announces new safety recommendations for high-dose simvastatinIncreased risk of muscle injury cited

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration today is announcing safety label changes for the cholesterol-lowering medication simvastatin because the highest approved dose--80 milligram (mg)--has been associated with an elevated risk of muscle injury or myopathy, particularly during the first 12 months of use.

The agency is recommending that simvastatin 80 mg be used only in patients who have been taking this dose for 12 months or more and have not experienced any muscle toxicity. It should not be prescribed to new patients. There are also new contraindications and dose limitations for when simvastatin is taken with certain other medications.

Simvastatin is used together with diet and exercise to reduce the amount of “bad cholesterol” (low-density lipoprotein cholesterol or LDL-C) in the blood. High levels of LDL-C are linked to a higher risk of heart attack, stroke and cardiovascular death. In 2010, about 2.1 million patients in the United States were prescribed a product containing simvastatin 80 mg.

“The FDA has completed its review of the safety of high-dose simvastatin and is making label changes to reduce the risk of statin-associated muscle injury,” said Eric Colman, M.D., deputy director of the Division of Metabolism and Endocrinology Products in the FDA’s Center for Drug Evaluation and Research. “We want to ensure that patients and health care professionals are aware of the new labeling changes to simvastatin, including the increased risk of myopathy when using the 80 mg dose of simvastatin.”

The changes to the label for simvastatin-containing medications are based on the FDA’s review of the results of the seven-year Study of the Effectiveness of Additional Reductions in Cholesterol and Homocysteine clinical trial, other clinical trial data, and analyses of adverse events submitted to the FDA’s Adverse Event Reporting System. All showed that patients taking simvastatin 80 mg daily had an increased risk of muscle injury compared to patients taking lower doses of simvastatin or other statin drugs. The risk of muscle injury is highest during the first year of treatment with the 80 mg dose of simvastatin, is often the result of interactions with certain other medicines, and is frequently associated with a genetic predisposition for simvastatin-related muscle injury.

Simvastatin is sold under the brand-name Zocor and as a single-ingredient generic product. It is also sold in combination with ezetimibe as Vytorin and in combination with niacin as Simcor.

The FDA has revised the drug labels for simvastatin and Vytorin to include the new 80 mg dosing restrictions. The agency also revised the labels for simvastatin, Vytorin and Simcor to include new dosing recommendations when these drugs are used with certain medications that interact to increase the level of simvastatin in the body, which can increase the risk for myopathy. Patients who are unable to adequately lower their level of LDL-C on simvastatin 40 mg should not be given the higher 80 mg dose of simvastatin; instead, they should be placed on an alternative LDL-C-lowering treatment(s).

For more information:

The FDA, an agency within the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, protects the public health by assuring the safety, effectiveness, and security of human and veterinary drugs, vaccines and other biological products for human use, and medical devices. The agency also is responsible for the safety and security of our nation’s food supply, cosmetics, dietary supplements, products that give off electronic radiation, and for regulating tobacco products.