Low Cholesterol May Decrease Cancer Risk - Studies examine link between cholesterol levels and cancer

Low Cholesterol May Decrease Cancer Risk - Studies examine link between cholesterol levels and cancer - Modern Medicine

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Jiyoung Ahn, Ph.D., from the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, Md., and colleagues examined the association between serum total and high-density lipoprotein (HDL) cholesterol and cancer risk in 29,093 men. During 18 years of follow-up, they found a lower risk of cancer overall in men with higher total serum cholesterol and higher HDL cholesterol. However, the association of higher total cholesterol and cancer risk disappeared if cancers diagnosed during the first nine years of follow-up were excluded, "indicating that lower serum cholesterol may be a marker of existing malignancy and not a causal factor," the authors write.

Elizabeth A. Platz, from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health in Baltimore, and colleagues examined the association between serum cholesterol and prostate cancer risk in 5,586 men who had been randomly assigned to the placebo arm of a clinical trial. They found that men with low cholesterol had a lower risk of high-grade prostate cancer (Gleason score, eight to 10; odds ratio, 0.41) but not prostate cancer overall or lower grade disease.

Results from the first study "clearly show that low total cholesterol is unlikely to increase risk of cancer," write the authors of an accompanying editorial. Results from the second study suggest that "analyses to replicate the association between low total cholesterol and reduced risk of high-grade prostate cancer are well justified."

Abstract - Ahn
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Abstract - Platz
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Editorial

Comments from our Readers

Dr. Dowdell / Oklahoma City, OK, UNITED STATES
Posted 2009-11-09 14:43:37.0
When I was first detailed on Mevacor, the first Statin drug, I asked him how it worked. He said that it blocked the HMB-co-a enzyme. I said that any Dr. thats writes an RX for this drug is saying that he knows more about the biochemical needs of the body than our Maker. I told him that if Mevacor did lower cholesterol, that It or one of it's metabolites acted as a potent antioxidant Oxidant chemical free-radicals injure the intimal cells by lipid peroxidation. In response to that injury, the body increases the production of cholesterol because it is a narural antioxidant. It goes to the site of injury and itself becomes oxidized in an attempt to protect the intimal cells from further injury.Cholesterol causes heart didease like an elevated neutophil count causes strep throat.If cholesterol is not an antioxidant, then how do you explain this, and if Statin drugs or one of their metabolites don't act as antioxidants, then how do you explain why patients taking Statin drugs have been found to have a lessor incidence of certain cancers?