I am a pharmacy student and out of interest I searched to see just how bad statins (ie the class of drugs lipitor belongs to) would be to someone with head injury.

I came across this article (http://journals.lww.com/jtrauma/Abst...mproved.5.aspx) which basically says older adults with traumatic brain injury had a lower risk of death and improved recovery if they were talking a statin prior to the injury. This is believed to be due to the many other mechanisms of action (decreased free radicals, decreased inflammatory cells, etc.) this drug has besides lowering cholesterol.

By no means am I saying patients with brain injury should take a statin. I'm just trying to point out I'm not sure its fair to make a blanket statement that statins are a terrible thing. I think each case would be different based on risk/benefits.

While yes its true there have been reported cases statins causing cognitive issues and for these patients stopping the statin has fixed the problem. I just wanted to point out the link between statin slightly increasing the risk of diabetes (its thought that it actually just causes diabetes to occur sooner in patient who would have gotten in later in life anyways) is more strongly accepted and has greater evidence than for the link between cognitive issues and statins. But again, any decision on drug therapy should involve a discussion with your doctor/pharmacist!