Cholesterol drugs may not reduce prostate cancer

Thu Aug 23, 5:36 PM ET
A class of cholesterol-lowering drugs called statins, which include frequently prescribed drugs such as Lipitor and Zocor, do not lower levels of the sex hormone testosterone in men, and are therefore unlikely to affect the risk of prostate cancer, which is closely linked to this male hormone.
The findings provide some reassurance that statins do not alter testosterone levels in men, Dr. Susan A. Hall told Reuters Health. The potential downside is that this means they may not reduce the risk of prostate cancer, although further research is needed to prove this.
Hall from New England Research Institutes, Watertown, Massachusetts and colleagues used data from the Boston Area Community Health Survey to investigate whether statins lower blood levels of testosterone and other male hormones.
On initial analysis, men using statins had slightly lower testosterone levels than non-users. However, further analysis showed that statin users typically had a number of other conditions that are associated with low testosterone levels, such as larger body size and diabetes.
Thus, after accounting for these factors, statin use had very little impact on testosterone levels, according to the findings published in the journal Cancer Epidemiology, Biomarkers, and Prevention.
Hall pointed out that her team's study was unable to assess the effect statins had on testosterone levels in the prostate gland itself, since these data were not collected.
SOURCE: Cancer Epidemiology, Biomarkers, and Prevention, August 2007.