People who met eligibility criteria for statin therapy had almost DOUBLE the cancer incidence of people who did not meet criteria for the lipid-modifying agents – data from the Framingham Heart Study showed.
Framingham participants eligible for statin therapy had a cancer incidence of 15.5% compared with 8.8% for those who did not meet statin eligibility criteria. Statin-eligible study participants had a ten-fold higher cancer mortality.
My Take – while this study went on to say that these results do not suggest that statins themselves are a cancer risk, there is no doubt in my mind that any foreign substance that enters the body has the potential to cause harm. Statins were developed to lower cholesterol, but cholesterol has been shown to only be a slight risk factor in cardiovascular disease (CVD) and according to the CDC, approximately 50% of individuals dying from CVD had cholesterol within the normal limits. So instead of taking a synthetic drug that might cause harm to your body, maybe you should have a compete evaluation of the risk factors that have been proven to cause CVD and determine if those factors are modifiable, without the use of drugs.