Not approved, not even tested with an appropriate clinical trial, but research has again shown that the use of statins in men with prostate cancer may have a lower risk of dying from the cancer than those who do not.

In a study of 1,001 prostate cancer patients who were diagnosed between 2002 and 2005, 289 used statins to lower their cholesterol levels. In the study the men were followed them for an average of six years, during which there were 123 total deaths, 39 from prostate cancer.

The study found no association of statins with recurrence or progression of prostate cancer, or with death from any other cause, but once the researchers controlled for age, smoking, body mass index, severity of disease, type of treatment, history of diabetes and many other variables, they found that statin non-users were five times as likely to die of prostate cancer as those who used statins! This is a significant number that we need to take note about.

According to the the senior author, Janet L. Stanford, a professor of epidemology at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle, “This raises the flag that these medications may be useful for secondary prevention ….and may warrant doing a clinical study to test in a randomized trial whether these meds can help reduce mortality.”

Joel T Nowak, M.A., M.S.W.