If simvastatin (Zocor) can cause insomnia and nightmares as a new study shows, then why doesn't pravastatin (Pravachol)? It seems that Zocor and its rivals Lipitor, Mevacor, and Vytorin are fat soluble, and so they cross into the brain easily. Pravachol, Crestor, and Lescol which are water-soluble, don't.
So perhaps AstraZeneca can latch onto this study as a marketing tool for Crestor, since it lost out with its big heart failure study earlier this week. You'll recall that the company's CORONA project, intended to show that Crestor could help patients with heart failure, didn't exactly deliver. Too bad Lipitor is on the Zocor side of the insomnia divide. A good night's sleep could have been a selling point for the Pfizer blockbuster, which has been losing patients to the newly generic simvastatin by the thousands.
- see the American Heart Association release
- check out this report
- read more about the way statins sneak into the brain from WebMD