HEALTHY DIETS AND SCIENCE: Low cholesterol is associated with increased cancer rates, especially in men

The raison d'etre of this website is to provide you with hard scientific information which may help you make informed decisions in your quest for health (so far I have blogged concise summaries of over 1,500 scientific studies and have had three books published).

My research is mainly focused on the effects of cholesterol, saturated fat and statin drugs on health. If you know anyone who is worried about their cholesterol levels and heart disease, or has been told to take statin drugs you could send them a link to this website, and to my statin or cholesterol or heart disease books.

David Evans

Independent Health Researcher

Wednesday 7 April 2010

Low cholesterol is associated with increased cancer rates, especially in men

This study was published in the Lancet 1987 Aug 8;2(8554):298-301

Study title and authors:
Serum cholesterol and cancer in the NHANES I epidemiologic followup study. National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey.
Schatzkin A, Hoover RN, Taylor PR, Ziegler RG, Carter CL, Larson DB, Licitra LM.

This paper can be accessed at:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/2886765?dopt=Abstract

This study investigated the relationship between cholesterol levels, cancer incidence and death from cancer in 5,125 men 7,363 women over a 10 year period.

The study found:
(a) Men with the lowest cholesterol have nearly double the risk of cancer incidence and death from cancer compared to the men with the highest cholesterol.
(b) Women with the lowest cholesterol have a 20% increased risk of cancer incidence and double the risk of death from cancer compared to the women with the highest cholesterol.

This paper shows that lower cholesterol values indicate higher cancer rates, especially in men.