Statins have transformed heart health, saving millions of lives by lowering cholesterol and reducing the risk of heart attacks and strokes. But for many patients, these drugs come with a troubling downside: muscle pain, weakness and, in rare cases, severe muscle breakdown that can lead to kidney failure.

University of British Columbia researchers and their collaborators at the University of Wisconsin-Madison have now pinpointed the cause. Their findings, published last week in Nature Communications, could pave the way for a new generation of statins without these side effects.