Statins on Prostate Cancer

Filed in archive Cases , Studies on August 13, 2007

Statins are widely used cholesterol-lowering drugs. Previous studies claimed that statins may reduce a man's risk of developing prostate cancer by reduction of the production of male hormones that trigger the growth of cancer.

Now a large community-based study conducted by the New England Research Institutes refutes those previous findings:

"...while men using statins did indeed have lower blood levels of androgens such as testosterone, it was more likely attributable to poor health rather than the use of statins."

According to study author, Susan A. Hall, Ph.D., a research scientist at the New England Research Institutes:

"The public health significance is that our study provides evidence that statins may not have a clinically meaningful impact on testosterone in the blood, although further studies should be done.

That doesn't mean that statins may be lowering prostate cancer risk through one or more alternative pathways, but it doesn't appear to be working through reduction of male hormones."

Bottom line is that, there is no exact strong evidence that exists yet to claim that statins can protect a man from prostate cancer.

Findings have been published in the August issue of Cancer Epidemiology, Biomarkers & Prevention - a journal of the American Association for Cancer Research.

Source: American Association for Cancer Research