Another use for Statins: Study Suggests Statins Slash Colon Cancer Risk
Sun, Jun 06, 2004
By Ransdell Pierson
NEW ORLEANS (Reuters) - Cholesterol-lowering drugs called statins may prevent various forms of cancer, including colon cancer, a researcher said on Sunday.
Israelis who took statins had a 51 percent lower risk of developing colon cancer than those who did not take the drugs, Dr. Stephen Gruber of the University of Michigan told a meeting of the American Society of Clinical Oncology (news - web sites).
But Gruber warned his study was "observational," or based on questionnaires rather than strict scientific controls, so it is far too early to definitively conclude that stains can prevent cancer.
His team studied 3,342 Israeli patients, about half of them with colorectal cancer, comparing them to a similar number of people matched for age, gender, and ethnicity.
They were all asked whether they had taken a statin for at least five years.
Statins greatly reduce the risk of stroke and heart attack and may help patients with multiple sclerosis and even Alzheimer's disease (news - web sites).
Statins -- which include Pfizer Inc.'s $10 billion-a-year Lipitor (news - web sites), Bristol-Myers Squibb Co.'s Pravachol and Merck and Co. Inc's Zocor -- interfere with an enzyme called HMG-CoA reductase that enables the liver to produce cholesterol.
In laboratory studies they also interfered with the growth of cancer cells.
"Pravastatin (Pravachol) and simvastatin (Zocor) had similarly protective effects" against colorectal cancer, Gruber said, suggesting all members of the statin class somehow interfere with development of tumors.
Gruber said other types of medicines that help control buildup of artery-clogging fats did not appear to have reduced the cancer risk.
He speculated statins, besides cutting cholesterol production, also interfere with a number of genes that promote tumors and therefore probably protect against other forms of cancer. But larger trials will be needed to prove this, he said.
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