Dave.... the data here in the US is long and complex. I doubt you will have the energy to go thru it all.

Fact one: It is being suggested here to give as little as possible to those who have heart disease. For example... 5mg of Crestor was found to lower cholesterol in patients at 5mg once a week.

40mg of Lipitor is outrageously high. If you ask your doctor to lower it to 5 or 10mg a day instead and retest, you might find it works well at that dose. Simvastatin for example has had FDA letters to reduce dosing this way as well. Lipitor and Zocor (simvastatin) are lipophilic and enter the brain, and these cause much more problems because of high doses.

Dr. Jay Cohen, MD has written a book on cholesterol treatments and suggests lower doses for those who absolutely require this drug:
http://www.amazon.com/Natural-Altern...en+cholesterol
This book has a chapter on using lower doses of statins to avoid side effects.

http://www.medicationsense.com/artic...holesterol.php

Statins block your natural body's manufacture of CoQ-10.... when this gets low, the heart muscle cannot contract properly and becomes damaged...and people then die of heart failure.
Studies have shown this occurs at about the 5 yr mark of use of statins, but that varies with people...some sooner, some maybe later. If you are not replacing that CoQ-10 with a good quality well absorbed supplement, then you are getting damaged every single day. The newer forms of solubilized CoQ-10 are Qunol and Q-Gel. I don't know if those are available in UK. Other forms do not dissolve well in the GI tract. So at LEAST if you remain even on a lower dose of Lipitor, you should be on the CoQ-10 to minimize some of damage statins do.