Cholesterol drugs may cut breast cancer risk

Main Category: Cancer / Oncology
Article Date: 20 Oct 2003 - 0:00 PST

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Cholesterol-lowering medications might reduce women's risk of breast cancer as well as heart disease, a new study suggests.

The notion that inhibiting cholesterol might prevent the development of tumors is a decade old. So far, results of studies of cholesterol-lowering drugs have been inconclusive. Some studies have found no effect on cancer risk, some have found a benefit and others have found an increased risk of cancer in certain users of the drugs.

The new study is one of the first to look specifically at breast cancer risk. But lead author Jane Cauley says it's too early to add reduced breast cancer risk to the list of cholesterol-lowering medications' benefits.

'We just need more information and more confirmatory studies,' says Cauley, an epidemiologist at the University of Pittsburgh.

Cauley and her fellow researchers studied 7,528 women 65 and older whose average age was 77. The women were participants in a study of osteoporotic fractures.

At one clinic visit during the study, researchers asked the women whether they took any cholesterol-lowering drugs. To verify the information, the researchers asked the women to bring all of their medications to the clinic.

About 8% of the women reported that they were taking a cholesterol-lowering drug - half statins, half other drugs such as niacin or gemfibrozil. The researchers did not collect information about how long the women had been taking the drugs.

For the most part, women who took cholesterol-lowering drugs had similar patterns of hormone therapy use as women who didn't. (The government-sponsored Women's Health Initiative found that taking estrogen plus progestin raised women's breast cancer risk.)

None of the women had breast cancer at the time the researchers collected information about their use of cholesterol-lowering medication. The scientists then followed them, for nearly seven years on average, to see who developed breast cancer.

A total of 244 women were diagnosed with the disease during the follow-up period, the researchers report in the October issue of the Journal of Women's Health.

After accounting for age and weight, two factors related to breast cancer risk, the researchers found that statin users were three-fourths less likely to develop breast cancer than women who weren't taking any cholesterol-lowering medication. Users of other cholesterol-lowering drugs were two-thirds less likely to develop the disease.

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