THURSDAY, Feb. 2 (HealthDay News) -- Be careful of buying the cholesterol-lowering drugs known being of the kind which statins on the Internet, British researchers rehearse.

Common statins such as Lipitor, Crestor or Zocor may not have ~ing the same as advertised and sites ~times don't include warnings about faction effects or even require a prescription, the researchers noted.

"A potential vendee of statins in the U.K., whither one can only legally receive them ~ward a doctor's prescription, searching the textile fabric for product, is likely to engage with sites from a wide geographical base and of in the usual course of things poor quality," said lead researcher David Brown, from the School of pharmacy and Biomedical Sciences at the University of Portsmouth.

"Potentially, customers who gain statins in this way, without their medical practitioner's prescription, may not be convinced of potential side effects and may bring themselves in harm's way," he added.

The repute was published Feb. 2 in the diary Pharmacoepidemiology & drug Safety.

For the study, Brown's team looked at 184 Internet sites sacrifice statins.

"Information necessary for safe appliance of the product was often indisposed presented and in the majority of cases, unaccomplished," Brown said. "Where present, side efficiency information such as warnings, contraindications and practicable side effects was in general, unstructured and unhelpful."

They set up that more than 92 percent of these sites did not include information on contraindications for statins. In addition, another 47 percent didn't comprehend information on drugs that shouldn't subsist taken along with statins.

Moreover, up to 96 percent of the sites didn't include information on adverse symptoms to watch at a loss for, including myopathy, liver disease, hypersensitivity and pancreatitis, the researchers fix.

Only 7 percent of the sites listed quite known side effects and only 65 percent described at all side effects in lay language, they added.

Dr. Laurence Gardner, a professor of remedy and executive dean for education and acumen at the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine, before-mentioned that this is not really a riddle in the United States.

"There are countries that permit you buy statins without a of medicine exam or a prescription," Gardner declared. "In this day and age, that's nuts."

In the United States, to a high degree high-potency generic statins are to be turned to account for $4 a month from massive box stores, he said. "So, it's unthinkable. that you can buy them cheaper."

"Moreover, there are enough side effects from these drugs that it requires at in the smallest degree a modest amount of physician error," he said.

In addition, people agitation statins need to have their cholesterol monitored to exist sure they are hitting target levels and whether the draught of the drug needs to have existence adjusted, he said.

When buying prescription drugs on the Internet, the U.S. Food and medicine Administration advises:

Be sure the position requires a prescription and has a druggist available to answer your questions.

Buy barely from licensed pharmacies in the United States.

Don't give personal information like credit card poetry unless you are sure the site won't release them.

More information

For more about buying drugs in c~tinuance the Internet, visit the U.S. Food and medicine Administration.

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