Statin Treatment Linked to Fewer Cancer Deaths

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Statin Treatment Linked to Fewer Cancer Deaths



Being treated for high cholesterol with statins is being linked with a reduced risk of death and better survival from four common cancers, a medical conference has heard.
The results come from a study of 14 years of UK data that included nearly a million people.
Cholesterol and Cancer
High cholesterol is known to increase the risk of heart disease, but less is known about the effect on the risk of developing cancer.
Previous research in animals found that giving statins for high cholesterol can reduce the risk of breast cancer, and researchers wanted to see if there was any effect of high cholesterol and its treatment on cancer deaths.
Anonymous information on people diagnosed for the first time with lung cancer, breast cancer, prostate cancer and bowel cancer was gathered from hospitals between January 2000 and March 2013.
Data on deaths from cancers came from the Office for National Statistics.
When researchers from several UK centres analysed the data, they found that people diagnosed with high cholesterol and one of the four cancers were less likely to die from cancer.
However, being diagnosed with high cholesterol usually lead to treatment, often with statins. So the researchers think the statin treatment might explain the protective effect, rather than high cholesterol itself.
They adjusted for other risk factors, such as age, gender, ethnicity, and other common causes of death.
Having a diagnosis of high cholesterol was linked to a:
  • 22% lower risk of death in lung cancer
  • 43% lower risk of death in breast cancer
  • 47% lower risk of death in prostate cancer
  • 30% lower risk of death in bowel cancer.
The study could only find a link between high cholesterol and a lower death risk, rather than establishing any cause-and-effect. However, high cholesterol has previously been linked with an increased risk of cancer, whereas animal experiments suggest that lowering cholesterol with statins may reduce it.


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