Statins are the most prescribed class of drugs, and many people who take them report muscle symptoms, from mild aches to severe pain. Researchers in Canada and the US now think they have found the spot where a statin latches onto muscle and switches on a part it was never meant to touch.
The study, published in Nature Communications in November 2025, comes from scientists at the University of British Columbia and the University of Wisconsin-Madison. They used cryo-electron microscopy, an imaging method that shows proteins down to the arrangement of their atoms, to image the statin atorvastatin attached to a muscle protein.
What the researchers found
Statins are designed to block an enzyme in the liver called HMG-CoA reductase, which the body uses to make cholesterol. The team looked at a different target: RyR1, the channel inside skeletal muscle fibres that releases calcium every time a muscle contracts.
Earlier work had already linked certain RyR1 gene variants to people who can’t tolerate statins, but nobody had shown that statins bind the channel directly. This study did. In the images, atorvastatin molecules lock into a groove on the channel in groups of three. One molecule binds first and nudges the channel toward opening. Two more then join it, the groove widens, and the channel opens.
The authors call RyR1 an “unintended off-target” of atorvastatin. In plain terms, the drug grabs a calcium channel in your muscles and opens it, and that offers a possible physical explanation for why some users feel aches and weakness.
What this does and does not mean
This is a lab study of the drug and the channel, not a trial in people. It looked at one statin, atorvastatin, and it doesn’t say how many users are affected or how much training plays into it. It also doesn’t mean anyone should stop their medication: statins lower cholesterol, and that decision belongs with your doctor.
The useful part is where this could lead. The researchers compared how atorvastatin sits in its intended target with how it sits in RyR1, and they say the differences point to ways of redesigning the drug so it keeps lowering cholesterol without grabbing the muscle channel.
If you lift and take a statin
Muscle pain is on the NHS list of common statin side effects. The NHS advice is to talk to a doctor if you think your medicine is causing side effects, because they can check what is behind it and may switch you to another statin or change the dose.
For lifters, the hard part is telling normal training soreness from something else. Ordinary delayed onset muscle soreness follows a hard or new session and fades within a few days. The US National Library of Medicine’s guidance on atorvastatin puts muscle pain, tenderness or weakness on its list of serious side effects, the ones it says mean calling your doctor or getting emergency help straight away. The same list includes extreme tiredness and dark-coloured urine. Those can be signs of rhabdomyolysis, a serious breakdown of muscle tissue that the study’s authors name as a risk for a subset of statin users.
FitnessVolt covered what it looks like in Larry Wheels’s rhabdomyolysis hospital stay.
If aches start after beginning a statin and don’t match your training, don’t train through them. Call your doctor, and if they come with dark-coloured urine or extreme tiredness, do it straight away.
Sources
- Molinarolo, S., Valdivia, C. R., Valdivia, H. H., & Van Petegem, F. (2025). Cryo-electron microscopy reveals sequential binding and activation of Ryanodine Receptors by statin triplets. Nature Communications. DOI: 10.1038/s41467-025-66522-0. PMID: 41266329.
- NHS. (n.d.). Statins. Accessed October 23, 2026.
- MedlinePlus, US National Library of Medicine. (n.d.). Atorvastatin. Accessed October 23, 2026.
