I found the idea of giving children statin drugs more than a little disturbing.
It's hard to tell whether such ideas are the result of creative marketing departments or well-intentioned [but missing-the-point] experts. There is no doubt, looking at any group of children, that many are overweight. But presuming that the cure for present and future ills is a lifetime of a powerful medicine is a bit extreme.
And any parent who goes along with such an idea has totally abdicated parental responsibility. How about smaller portions of food and more exercise?Last year, I started taking a statin drug for slightly elevated levels of cholesterol. There can be certain side effects such as muscle [including heart] weakness and chronic coughing.
Additionally, statin drugs were originally approved on the basis that they would include coenzyme Q10 [commonly called CoQ10] which alleviated some of the muscular weakness symptoms. Unfortunately, after approval, the formulations conveniently dropped this expensive compound.My wife has added CoQ10 supplements to my diet as a precautionary medicine to take with my precautionary medicine. I doubt that most children would receive that extra bit of precaution from ill-informed parents.
Now I'm going to see my doctor about this chronic cough that started a few months after beginning to take statin drugs...