Low cholesterol may be sign of undiagnosed cancer

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Low cholesterol may be sign of undiagnosed cancer

Tuesday, November 3, 2009

By Steenhuysen

CHICAGO (Reuters Life!) - Low total cholesterol may be a sign of cancer rather

than a cause, as some researchers have suggested, and men who have low

cholesterol actually have a lower risk of developing high-risk prostate cancer,

two teams reported on Tuesday.

Both studies, reported in the journal Cancer Epidemiology, Biomarkers &

Prevention, shed new light on the role of cholesterol and cancer.

For years, researchers had noticed that people who have lower total cholesterol

-- a combination of both low-density lipoprotein or LDL, the " bad " kind, and

high-density lipoprotein or HDL, the " good " kind -- appeared more likely to have

certain types of cancers than other people.

That was worrisome because having low cholesterol, and particularly low levels

of " bad " LDL cholesterol, has been shown to protect against heart attacks and

strokes.

" Our study affirms that lower total cholesterol may be caused by undiagnosed

cancer, " Dr. Demetrius Albanes, a senior investigator at the National Cancer

Institute, part of the National Institutes of Health, said in a statement.

" In terms of a public health message, we found that higher levels of 'good'

cholesterol seem to be protective for all cancers, " he said.

The 18-year study of nearly 30,000 Finnish male smokers is the largest and

longest of its kind. During that period, 7,545 men developed cancer.

The men with lower total cholesterol levels -- below 230 milligrams/deciliter --

had an 18 percent higher risk of cancer overall -- just as in earlier studies.

But, when they excluded cancers that occurred in the first nine years of the

study, this risk disappears.

" This finding supports the idea that the lower serum total cholesterol level we

detected as a possible cancer risk factor may actually have been the result of

undiagnosed cancers, " Albanes told reporters in a telephone briefing.

They also found men who had higher levels of HDL or " good " cholesterol (above 40

milligrams/deciliter) had a 14 percent lower risk of cancer even after excluding

nine years of early cases.

MORE STUDIES NEEDED

Albanes said the notion that high levels of HDL may protect against cancer is

new and needs to be confirmed in other studies, particularly among women.

" The results should help dispel any lingering concerns anyone might have that

having low cholesterol could cause cancer, " s of the American Cancer

Society told reporters.

A companion study of more than 5,000 U.S. men by Platz of s

Hopkins University in Baltimore and colleagues found a link between low

cholesterol and a lower risk of high-grade prostate cancer among 5,586 men over

55.

They found that if men had total cholesterol of less than 200

milligrams/deciliter, they had a nearly 60 percent lower risk of developing high

grade prostate cancer, the riskiest kind.

It is not clear whether taking cholesterol-lowering statin drugs might help men

with prostate cancer. That would need to be studied, Platz said.

(Editing by Maggie Fox and Mohammad Zargham)

Reuters Health

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