Things like this make me ask ... would he have been sharper without them?
That’s what I run into with my doc. “You seem sharp to me”. Yeah, I’m a resonably smart guy, but could I be better if I skip these? Slowdown may not be apparent to others, but it is to me.
Not a doctor... observed some interesting side effects with my parents on these, and would personally err on the side of caution with them. If you do come off though, do it gradually - also there are different types, so it may be worth looking into that.
Since he kept working for another 19 years, including supervising heart surgery on Boris Yeltsin, he probably didn't suffer much of a decrease in sharpness on statins, if any.
Two well-done meta-analyses of statins for primary prevention showed no mortality benefit. After the exclusion of four trials with serious risks of bias, the relative risk of cardiovascular events associated with statins was 0.99 (95% confidence interval, 0.90 to 1.08).2,3
Now, as for mental health, the FDA has added no warnings despite decades of use, and the mechanism of action strongly suggests statins would be protective if anything (by directly and significantly reducing vascular dementia). Here's a package insert from the FDA's website: https://www.accessdata.fda.gov/drugsatfda_docs/label/2012/02...
Also, I'm not raging statin advocate, the real answer is diet and exercise. The American lifestyle is a catastrophe.
