We all know that healthy cholesterol levels offer protection to our hearts… now two new studies published in the journal Cancer Epidemiology, Biomarkers & Prevention suggest another benefit – reduce cholesterol and reduce your risk of developing certain cancers.
The pair of studies conducted by a team of cancer researchers suggests low cholesterol doesn’t deserve its worrisome reputation, or its association with a higher cancer risk earned thanks to a series of studies in the 1980s.
This latest work found low total cholesterol was associated with almost 60% less risk of the most aggressive type of prostate cancer. Higher levels of good cholesterol, also known as HDL, were shown to offer protection against lung, liver and other cancers.
In fact, the experts wonder if cholesterol levels might drop before cancer is diagnosed. This suggests that the lower cholesterol levels might be the result, rather than the cause, of the cancer.
In the first study, conducted by the National Cancer Institute (NCI), men with HDL numbers over 55 mg/dL (HDL of 40-50 are average for men) had an 11% decrease in cancer risk. This included lung and liver cancers.
The subjects were 29,000 male smokers in Finland, studied over an 18-year period, making the study the largest to find a relationship between HDL and cancer.
At first the results backed up what had been learned during the studies of the 1980s – men with lower total cholesterol had a higher cancer risk. The trend disappeared when the researchers excluded cases of cancer that had been diagnosed during the first nine years of the study. These men might have had cancer, but without being diagnosed yet.
“Very few studies measured [HDL], and any relationship between HDL and overall cancer risk had therefore not been adequately evaluated,” said Dr. Demetrius Albanes of the NCI and the lead author of the study.
Of course more work is needed to confirm the results… especially in women and nonsmokers.
Continues below…
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Cholesterol Levels And Cancer Continued…
In the second study, the same team looked at 5,500 men aged 55 and over. Those with total cholesterol numbers under 200 mg/dL (”desirable” according to the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute) had about a 60% lower risk of high grade prostate cancer, the most aggressive type.
The decrease in risk was only in the high-grade tumors and not in less serious cases of this type of cancer. “It was a notable reduction, which is not that often seen in prostate cancer research,” explains lead researcher Elizabeth Platz, a cancer epidemiologist at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. This pattern was reported in an earlier study conducted by Platz and her colleagues.
The second study was inspired by a growing body of evidence that suggests statin drugs (like Lipitor) might protect against high-grade prostate cancer. More studies, including randomized, controlled trials, are needed to confirm the link between cholesterol and prostate cancer.
In an editorial that accompanies the two studies, Eric Jacobs, an epidemiologist with the American Cancer Society says, “[It's] a very new, exciting question, but we need to do a great deal more research before we have any clear answers.” The findings of both studies on cholesterol and cancer raise key questions, and are likely to be very interesting areas for future study.
In other words… stay tuned.
Daily Health Bulletin
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