Effect of Statins on
Skeletal Muscle CoQ10 Levels
Animal studies document that statins can reduce ubiqui- none levels in cardiac muscle and liver (11,31–33). If CoQ10 deficiency contributes, at least in part, to statin- associated myopathy, CoQ10 levels in skeletal muscle should also be reduced, but data from animal models are inconsistent. Whereas simvastatin or pravastatin decreased skeletal muscle ubiquinone up to 72% (p 0.005) when administered to rabbits, other studies using rabbits do not support these results (34). High-dose statin treatment (50 mg/kg of simvastatin or pravastatin per day for 14 days) did not reduce skeletal muscle concentrations of ubiquinone in animals treated with either drug. Severe lesions in skeletal muscles developed in the simvastatin-treated rabbits, de- spite the absence of decreases in muscle ubiquinone levels (32). A recent animal study treated rats with various doses of cerivastatin for 15 days and demonstrated no significant difference, in most cases, between skeletal muscle mean ubiquinone levels in statin-treated animals and nontreated control animals (35).