A new study published in The Lancet Digital Health has reaffirmed that severe muscle-related side effects from statins are exceedingly rare, despite widespread public concern over potential risks.

Researchers found that people tend to worry more about muscle damage than the evidence supports.

Heart disease remains the leading cause of death worldwide, and statins have been shown to lower LDL cholesterol by up to 60%, reducing the risk of heart attack and stroke.

Yet, hesitancy persists among patients, with less than half of the 50 million Americans who could benefit from statins actually taking them.

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Researchers analyzed medical records from nearly 6 million adults in the United Kingdom to evaluate how often statin-related muscle disorders occur.

Their findings showed that only about 0.04% of people had a 10-year risk of developing serious muscle problems of more than 10%, an already extremely low threshold.

These results are even lower than earlier figures reported by the American Heart Association, which placed the rate of myopathy at under 1% and rhabdomyolysis under 0.1%. Dr. Bart Duell of Oregon Health and Science University, who co-authored the AHA report but did not participate in the new study, called the risk “very tiny.”

“The risk of muscular side effects really isn’t a reason to not use statins,” Duell said, adding that even if the rates were multiplied tenfold, they would still represent a very small risk.

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Statins are among the most widely studied drugs in medical history, with several decades of safety data. Dr. Steve Nissen of the Cleveland Clinic said that in his 40 years of practice, he has never admitted a patient to the hospital for a muscle disorder caused by statins.

The new U.K. study also introduced a predictive tool designed for clinicians to determine each patient’s individualized statin side effect risk.

Researchers said this approach helps separate mild, often unrelated muscle pain from rare serious muscle conditions such as myopathy or rhabdomyolysis.

Ting Cai of the University of Oxford, one of the study’s authors, said that the goal was to provide more personalized information so people better understand their actual level of risk.

“Often, people read numbers based on a whole population or hear anecdotes about someone who had complications, but they don’t know what will happen to them personally,” she explained.

Preventive cardiologist Dr. Nishant Shah from Duke Health said widespread fear about statins has grown from misinformation and anecdotal reports.

“There’s a lot of social media messaging, non-peer-reviewed websites, and word-of-mouth concerns,” he said. “It all kind of adds to the concern and then people communicate until that belief is widely spread.”

Duell agreed that risks must always be weighed against benefits. For most patients with high cholesterol or a family history of heart disease, the advantages of reducing cholesterol far outweigh the small possibility of side effects.

Experts noted that doctors can adjust doses or switch patients to other cholesterol-lowering medications if muscle pain appears.

They also clarified that statin-related muscle effects are often dose-related rather than all-or-nothing issues.

Despite continuing fears, the data underscore that serious muscle complications are extremely uncommon. As Duell summarized, “The horror stories people talk about are very unlikely to occur.”