Study links low cholesterol levels and cancer

2 hours, 45 minutes ago
The heart benefits of taking so-called statin drugs to reduce cholesterol might be offset by a slightly increased risk of cancer, although the evidence is by no means clear, U.S. scientists said on Tuesday.
A new pooled, or meta, analysis of past studies involving 41,000 patients on statins found one additional incident of cancer per 1,000 patients with low levels of LDL, or "bad" cholesterol, compared to those with higher LDL.
The results will be published in the July 31 issue of the Journal of the American College of Cardiology.
Dr Richard Karas, professor of medicine at Tufts University School of Medicine in Boston, who led the research, stressed the association did not prove statins caused the increase in cancer risk.
"The demonstrated benefits of statins in lowering the risk of heart disease remain clear; however, certain aspects of lowering LDL with statins remain controversial and merit further research," he said in a statement.
The analysis looked at clinical trials published before November 2005 and involved patients treated with popular statins, including Pfizer Inc.'s Lipitor and Merck & Co. Inc.'s Zocor, which is now off patent.
It did not include data from recently launched statins such as AstraZeneca Plc's Crestor and Merck/Schering-Plough Corp.'s Vytorin.
Dr John C. La Rosa of the State University of New York Downstate Medical Center in Brooklyn, who wrote an accompanying editorial in the journal, said the new research needed to be seen in perspective.
"These current findings provide insufficient evidence that there is any problem with LDL lowering that outweighs its significant benefits on vascular disease," he said.
One possibility is that the higher cancer risk in patients with low LDL reflects the fact they live longer and are therefore more likely to develop cancer.