Statins do not increase cancer survival as some studies have claimed.

When researchers eliminated biases from study designs, they found that there was no difference in cancer survival between statin users and non-users.

There was no difference in cancer survival between users and non-users (0% difference), but there was a 7% increased risk of dying overall in statin users versus non-users during the 3-year follow-up period, but this difference was not statistically significant.

I just published a book called The Case Against Statins.

It is a collection of articles that I have written about statins over the past 11 years.

It contains evidence that:

• Statins are not effective.
• Statins increase atherosclerosis.
• Statins increase the risk of heart attacks.
• Statins increase the risk of certain cancers.
• Statins increase the risk of diabetes.
• Statins increase the risk of Parkinson’s.
• Statins increase the risk of Alzheimer’s.
• Statins increase the risk of ALS.
• Statins increase the risk of cataracts.
• Statins increase the risk of kidney failure.
• Statins increase the risk of liver dysfunction.
• Statins increase erectile dysfunction.
• Statins increase muscle fatigue.
• Statins can cause muscle rupture.
• Statins have an immunosuppressive effect.
• Statins increase the risk of dying.

This book is just about statins, but the problem is not just with statins.

It is a problem with most drugs given long-term.

Prolonged use of statins for more than 4 years was associated with an 18% increased risk of lung cancer according to a recent analysis of data from 574 UK general practices from 1998-2008.

Prolonged use of statins for more than 4 years was associated with a 23% increased risk of colorectal cancer according to a recent analysis of data from 574 UK general practices from 1998-2008.

Prolonged use of atorvastatin (Lipitor) for more than 4 years was associated with a 51% increased risk of colorectal cancer.

Prolonged use of statins for more than 4 years was associated with a 29% increased risk of bladder cancer according to a recent analysis of data from 574 UK general practices from 1998-2008.

“Statin treatment increased the risk of type 2 diabetes by 46%, attributable to decreases in insulin sensitivity and insulin secretion,” concludes a 2015 study that followed 8,749 non-diabetic participants, 45– to 73-years-old, for 5.9 years.

People given the statin, pravastatin (Pravachol), had 25% more cancer than those given a placebo in the PROSPER trial.

• 65% more breast cancer
• 46% more gastrointestinal cancer
• 12% more respiratory cancer
• 41% more other cancers
• and they did not including non-melanoma skin cancer.
  (Previous studies have found that statins increase the risk of non-melanoma skin cancers.)

Women given the statin, pravastatin (Pravachol), had 12-times as much breast cancer as women given a placebo in the CARE trial.

Drug companies and their paid researchers have tried to convince people that statins lower the risk of cancer, but this study and many others suggest that the exact opposite is true — that statins increase the risk of cancer, not decrease the risk.

Long-term statin use (10 years or more) is associated with a more than 2-fold increased risk of breast cancer according to researchers at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle, Washington.

Drug companies 
and their paid researchers have tried to convince people that 
statins lower the risk of cancer,
 but this study 
and many others 
suggest that the 
exact opposite is true — 
that statins increase the risk of cancer, not decrease the risk.

In the first statin study called the Expanded Clinical Evaluation of Lovastatin (EXCEL) study (1991), all-cause mortality was 2.8 times greater in people given lovastatin than those given a placebo (0.50% vs 0.18%) during the first year of follow-up as noted in a 1992 paper published in the British Medical Journal titled Should there be a moratorium on the use of cholesterol lowering drugs?

Statin use among US adults increased by 68% from 1999 to 2005, from 8% of people surveyed to 13.4% of people surveyed.

How much do you think this reduced heart attacks, strokes and coronary heart disease?

Would you be surprised to learn that during this time that:

• Heart attacks increased by 16%!
  (from 3.4% to 3.7%)
• Strokes increased by 45%!
  (from 2.0% to 2.9%)
• Coronary heart disease increased by 32%!
  (from 2.8% to 3.7%)
• Type 2 diabetes increased by 32%!
  (from 7.8% to 10.3%)
• People with one or more of these conditions increased by 19%!
  (from 13.4% to 16%)

Do you believe that statins reduce the risk of heart attack, stroke and death?

I do not.

The results of the study mentioned above suggests the exact opposite.

The one-third of people with the highest cholesterol levels were 57% less likely to get Parkinson’s during a 20-year follow-up compared to the one-third of people with the lowest cholesterol levels according to a recent study.

The one-third of people with the middle cholesterol levels were 44% less likely to get Parkinson’s compared to the one-third of people with the lowest cholesterol levels.

The say this the other way, the one-third of people with the lowest cholesterol levels were 2.3 times more likely to get Parkinson’s than the one-third of people with the highest cholesterol levels, and they were 1.8 times more likely to get Parkinson’s compared to the one-third of people with the middle cholesterol levels.

“Our study suggests that lowering cholesterol unnecessarily actually may harm the brain,”  Xuemei Huang, MD, PhD lead author of the study was quoted as saying.

The most popular statins increase the risk of Parkinson’s Disease by 58% according to new study.

These are the lipophilic statins, meaning that they dissolve in fats, which include atorvastatin (Lipitor), fluvastatin (Lescol), lovastatin (Mevacor), pitavastatin (Livalo), simvastatin (Zocor).

People taking both a statin and a nonstatin to lower cholesterol levels had a 95% increased risk of Parkinson’s compared to people taking neither according to a new study.

Nonstatin cholesterol-lowering drugs included fenofibrate (Trilipix, Tricor, Triglide, Antara, Lipofen, Fibricor, Lofibra, and Fenoglide), ezetimibe (Zetia), and niacin.

This study found that the most popular statins increase the risk of Parkinson’s Disease by 58%.

These are the lipophilic statins, meaning that they dissolve in fats, which include atorvastatin (Lipitor), fluvastatin (Lescol), lovastatin (Mevacor), pitavastatin (Livalo), simvastatin (Zocor).

Statin use is associated with a 1% to 12% increased risk of Alzheimer’s according to an analysis of data on 30,343,035 persons aged 40 to 65 years between January 1, 2008, and December 31, 2012 as noted in an article on Medscape (Melville, 2016).

Reference

Melville NA. Statin Use Linked to Increased Parkinson’s Risk. American Neurological Association (ANA) 2016 Annual Meeting, Presented October 16, 2016; Abstract S137: http://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/870996.

The article on Medscape notes:

“We identified 20,000 Parkinson’s disease patients and looked at whether using statins was associated with a higher or lower risk, and we found people using statins have a higher risk of the disease, so this is the opposite of what has been hypothesized,” senior author Xuemei Huang, MD, PhD, vice chair for research at Penn State College of Medicine, Hershey, Pennsylvania, told Medscape Medical News.

The same is true for Alzheimer’s — it’s the opposite of what has been hypothesized.

(The same research group found that statin use was found to be associated with a 58% increased risk of Parkinson’s.)

Rosuvastatin (Crestor), a statin to lower cholesterol levels, is associated with a 9-fold increase in Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS) as noted in an article by Dr. Malcolm Kendrick, author of The Great Cholesterol Con and the book Doctoring Data.

Pravastatin (Pravachol), a statin to lower cholesterol levels, is associated with a 16-fold increase in Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS) as noted in an article by Dr. Malcolm Kendrick, author of The Great Cholesterol Con and the book Doctoring Data.

Atorvastatin (Lipitor), a statin to lower cholesterol levels, is associated with a 17-fold increase in Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS) as noted in an article by Dr. Malcolm Kendrick, author of The Great Cholesterol Con and the book Doctoring Data.

Simvastatin (Zocor and FloL), a statin to lower cholesterol levels, is associated with a 23-fold increase in Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS) as noted in an article by Dr. Malcolm Kendrick, author of The Great Cholesterol Con and the book Doctoring Data.

Lovastatin (Altoprev), a statin to lower cholesterol levels, is associated with a 107-fold increase in Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS) as noted in an article by Dr. Malcolm Kendrick, author of The Great Cholesterol Con and the book Doctoring Data.

Do statins increase cancer?

Yes, according to a letter published in Current Oncology.

The letter starts out by saying “prospective data suggest that statins actually increase cancer in certain segments of the population.”

Here are other quotes from the letter.

Type 1 diabetics taking statins for 1-6 years were 3.2 times more likely to have cognitive impairment compared to Type 1 diabetics who had never taking statins.

“Statin use was associated with cognitive impairment, particularly affecting memory, in these middle-aged adults with childhood-onset [type 1 diabetes], whom at this age, should not yet manifest age-related memory deficits,” the authors of the paper concluded.

They also note:

“Animal and cell culture studies show that statins can damage cerebral gray and white matter, thereby affecting cognitive function. Findings from human studies remain controversial; early observational studies reported that statin use negatively affected cognition, especially memory, while more recent studies have not replicated these findings.”

Type 1 diabetics taking statins for 7-12 years were 4.8 times more likely to have cognitive impairment compared to Type 1 diabetics who had never taking statins.

“Statin use was associated with cognitive impairment, particularly affecting memory, in these middle-aged adults with childhood-onset [type 1 diabetes], whom at this age, should not yet manifest age-related memory deficits,” the authors of the paper concluded.

They also note:

“Animal and cell culture studies show that statins can damage cerebral gray and white matter, thereby affecting cognitive function. Findings from human studies remain controversial; early observational studies reported that statin use negatively affected cognition, especially memory, while more recent studies have not replicated these findings.”

There were 25% more new cancers in elderly people 70-82 who were given 40 mg of pravastatin (Pravachol) per day to lower cholesterol compared to those given a placebo according to the PROSPER trial.

People 75-years and older without cardiovascular disease who took the statin, pravastatin (Pravachol, 40 mg/day), to lower cholesterol were 34% more likely to have died during the 8 year study than people of the same age not taking a statin although the difference did not quite reach statistical significance.

(There was a 7% chance that the difference between the two groups was due to random chance, but this is close enough for me.)

There were 92 deaths in the pravastatin group versus 65 deaths in the non-statin group.

At the very least this means that pravastatin (Pravachol) provides no benefit to people of this age, and at worst, it means that pravastatin (Pravachol) increases the risk of death considerably.

People 65- to 74-years-old without heart disease who took the statin, pravastatin (Pravachol, 40 mg/day), to lower cholesterol were 8% more likely to have died during the 8 year study than people of the same age not taking a statin although the difference was not statistically significant.

There were 141 deaths in the pravastatin group versus 130 deaths in the non-statin group.

At the very least this means that pravastatin (Pravachol) provides no benefit to people of this age, and at worst, it means that pravastatin (Pravachol) increases the risk of death.

“Among the [twelve (12)] Western European countries studied, the large increase in statin utilisation between 2000 and 2012 was not associated with [coronary heart disease] mortality, nor with its rate of change over the years,” notes a recent study.

Statin use is associated with a 10-13% increased risk of cataracts according to a new paper.

Statin use is associated with a 61% greater risk of Parkinson’s disease according to an analysis of data on 30,343,035 people aged 40 to 65 years between January 1, 2008 and December 31, 2012.

This was after adjusting for age, sex, and other comorbidities, such as hyperlipidemia, diabetes, hypertension, and coronary artery disease.

“We identified 20,000 Parkinson’s disease patients and looked at whether using statins was associated with a higher or lower risk, and we found people using statins have a higher risk of the disease, so this is the opposite of what has been hypothesized,” senior author Xuemei Huang, MD, PhD, vice chair for research at Penn State College of Medicine, Hershey, Pennsylvania, told Medscape Medical News.

“Our study suggests that lowering cholesterol unnecessarily actually may harm the brain,”  Xuemei Huang, MD, PhD lead author of the study was quoted as saying.

Previous research has failed to recognize this or reported the opposite, that statins lower the risk of Parkinson’s, because previous studies have failed to adjust for cholesterol levels.

Statin use is associated with a 1-12% greater risk of Alzheimer’s disease according to an analysis of data on 30,343,035 people aged 40 to 65 years between January 1, 2008, and December 31, 2012.

“Medical research is fraught with incompetence, careerism and fraud. Conflict of interest ... is a cancer eating at the core of medical research,” Dr. Kailash Chand, deputy chairman of the British Medical Association, “who is an outspoken critic of what he regards as industry-driven hype surrounding statins” was quoted as saying in a Dec 2015 article published on the Daily Mail Online.

“The more embedded the financial and other interests in the outcome of a study, the more likely the findings are going to be false.”

“We need doctors to concentrate on research that matters to patients, not their careers or the advance of drug companies.”

Dr. Kailash Chand, deputy chairman of the British Medical Association, believes that statin benefits have been “grossly exaggerated” and that there is a lack of transparency over the statins’ side effects,’ as he was quoted as saying in a Dec 2015 article published on the Daily Mail Online as saying.

Regarding a paper claiming that news stories about statin side effects caused people to die from heart attacks because they had stopped their statins [which I think is complete nonsense], Dr. Kailash Chand, deputy chairman of the British Medical Association, who is an outspoken critic of what he regards as industry-driven hype surrounding statins, “argued that in his view the conclusions of the study were ‘very misleading’ and detracted from the real issues surrounding statins - lack of transparency over the drugs’ side effects and the fact that their benefits have been ‘grossly exaggerated’” according to an article from Dec 2015 article published on the Daily Mail Online.

A recent vaccine study found that statins have an immunosuppressive effect.

Older people on statins given flu vaccines for various strains of flu had a 38-67% lower response to the vaccine than people not on statins.

“This apparent immunosuppressive effect of statins on the vaccine immune response was most dramatic in individuals receiving synthetic statins,” the paper notes.

LDL cholesterol inactivates bacteria and viruses; in other words, adequate amounts of LDL are a good thing, not a bad thing

Uffe Ravnskov, MD, PhD has noted that LDL cholesterol inactivates bacteria and viruses, however, he has also noted that this fact is not widely known.

Therefore, my guess would be that this is the reason that statins have an immunosuppressive effect, that is, statins lower LDL cholesterol which is involved in the immune response.

Sir David Nicholson, the former chief executive of NHS England (National Health Service England), stopped taking his statin because of “debilitating” side effects according to an article in the UK newspaper The Sunday Times.

Nicholson was quoted as saying, “I was getting muscle and joint pain. It was getting worse and worse. It was mild to begin with and I kind of thought it was because I was getting old. I stopped taking them for a week and I got better.”

“The muscle pain probably started in May or June 2013. It got really bad towards the last two or three months. I was struggling with sleep.”

Sir Richard Thompson, the former president of the Royal College of Physicians and the Queen of England’s doctor for 21 years, was quoted in The Daily Express as saying,
    “The statin data needs to be urgently scrutinised.
    “We are very worried about it and particularly side-effect data which seems to have been swept under the carpet.
    “We have to be very wary of the doubts about statins produced by this new research and if we are wrong about widespread prescribing of this drug we have to stand up and say sorry.”

His quote was in response to the review paper by Michel de Lorgeril, MD, a cardiologist at the University of Grenoble in France, and Mikael Rabaeus, MD, a Swiss cardiologist, of statin studies done since 2005-2006, when rules changed making the results more credible.

Findings from their review paper are posted here.

Their report concluded “statins are not effective for cardiovascular prevention”.

Dr. De Lorgeril, was quoted as saying, “We cannot trust these trials. I would warn people not to take statins.”

There is strong evidence which suggests that statins do not lower the risk of cancer as has been claimed, but instead they increase the risk of cancer as described in an article titled ”Statins do not protect against cancer: quite the opposite” written by Uffe Ravnskov, MD, PhD, an independent researcher from Denmark; Paul Rosch, MD from New York Medical College and the American Institute of Stress; and Kilmer McCully, MD from Veterans Affairs Boston Healthcare System, and Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

Among women in the 1998 CARE trial in which people were given pravastatin to reduce cholesterol levels, there were 12 cases of breast cancer in women given the statin versus only one women who was given a placebo.

Total number of cancer cases was nearly twice as great in women given a statin as women given a placebo (23 cases versus 12 cases).

Lots of experimental evidence shows that lower cholesterol levels are associated with a higher risk of cancer, and higher cholesterol levels are associated with a lower risk of cancer.

“We have collected a wealth of information on cholesterol and statins from many published papers and find overwhelming evidence that these drugs accelerate hardening of the arteries and can cause, or worsen, heart failure.
    “I cannot find any evidence to support people taking statins and patients who are on them should stop,” Prof. Harumi Okuyama from Nagoya City University in Nagoya, Japan, lead author of a recent review of more than 20 studies done with statins, was quoted as saying in the UK newspaper The Daily Express.