Cholesterol-Heart Rhythm Drugs Don’t Mix Well: FDA Warns

Commonly prescribed medicines for checking high cholesterol and irregular heart rate, when taken in combination, increase the patients’ risk of developing a rare muscular damage - Rhabdomyolysis, the US Food and Drug Administration warned.

Rhabdomyolysis is a serious muscle damage that causes the rapid breakdown of skeletal muscle tissue. Caused by chemical factors, the damage caused to the muscle leads to the release of the breakdown products of damaged muscle cells into the bloodstream. Some of these damaged muscle cells, like myoglobin, are harmful to the kidney and may lead to acute kidney failure, thus causing death.

Citing the condition fueled by the way the two drugs interact, the FDA on Friday in its alert urged health-care specialists to take added precautions while prescribing doses of simvastatin - the generic name for the cholesterol medications - higher than 20 milligrams to patients who are also taking amiodarone, a heart rhythm drug marketed as Cordarone or Pacerone.

Also, doctors should consider switching patients who are taking the heart rhythm drug to other statins for controlling cholesterol, the FDA recommended.

Though, the risk of muscle injury associated with simvastatin has been on the drug's label since 2002, 52 new cases of serious muscular injuries to patients taking the combination medications have been reported since the time, FDA highlighted.

While, the heart medication is mainly used to correct the irregular rhythms in the ventricles - the heart chambers that pump blood to the lungs and body, the simvastatin are designed to control hypercholesterolemia – the elevated cholesterol levels- and thus, to prevent cardiovascular disease.