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Q: Can you take Zocor if you have had hepatitis?
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The Trusted Source
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Stephen E. Goldfinger, M.D., is the faculty dean for Continuing Education and a professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School. He is a graduate of Columbia College of Physicians and Surgeons, and his clinical base is at the Massachusetts General Hospital.

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October 02, 2008
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A:

The answer is a simple "yes."

Zocor is a statin drug. Statins are used to lower cholesterol. They sometimes cause mild elevations of the serum aminotransferases. These enzymes form in the liver and release into the blood when the liver becomes inflamed. For this reason, doctors had early concerns that statins could result in liver injury in some people.

However, many thousands of people have used and are using statins. Serious liver injury is an extraordinarily rare side effect.

Even people with ongoing elevations of these enzymes -- due to fatty livers or low-grade chronic viral hepatitis -- do not seem to suffer any additional liver injury when put on statins. So your background of "having had" hepatitis, presumably with a full recovery, would not exclude you from being a candidate for the statin Zocor.

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