CONSORT diagram of patients’ recruitment.
statin-associated muscle symptoms
VITAMIN D DEFICIENCY
* All participants recruited into the pilot study had SAMS and were allocated to the SAMS group; ** The large range here is explained by the fact that the participants in the pilot study did not complete all the measures of the study. Exceptions are presented in the methods section; M: men; SAMS: statin-associated muscle symptoms; W: women.Participants were excluded from the study if they had taken other lipid-lowering drugs or any natural treatment that affects lipid metabolism in the last year. Other exclusion criteria included vitamin D deficiency (calcifediol (25(OH)DIn a subset of participants (n = 22) for which data were available, comparisons based on SAMS-CI category were performed for SAMS-reporting participants [The protocol was approved by the CHU de Québec–Université Laval ethics committee, and all participants provided informed written consent. The study design complied with the principles of the Declaration of Helsinki and was registered in clinicaltrials.gov (NCT01493648). This study was conducted at the CHU de Québec–Université Laval (CHUL), with enrollment and data acquisition from October 2011 to October 2015.