HEALTHY DIETS AND SCIENCE: Statins increase the risk of death by 21% in women with breast cancer

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

Friday 4 October 2013

Statins increase the risk of death by 21% in women with breast cancer

2013 Sep 25;8(9):e75088

Study title and authors:

Mortality and Recurrence Risk in Relation to the Use of Lipid-Lowering Drugs in a Prospective Breast Cancer Patient Cohort.

Nickels S, Vrieling A, Seibold P, Heinz J, Obi N, Flesch-Janys D, Chang-Claude J.

Division of Cancer Epidemiology, German Cancer Research Center (DKFZ), Heidelberg, Germany.

This study can be accessed at: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24086446

This study investigated the effects of cholesterol lowering drugs (the vast majority (85%) were taking statins) on women diagnosed with breast cancer. The study included 3,189 women, aged 50 and older, who were followed for 5.3 years.

The study found:
(a) Women taking statins had a 21% increased risk of death compared to women not taking statins.
(b) Women taking statins had a 4% increased risk of death from breast cancer compared to women not taking statins.
(c) Women taking statins had a 49% increased risk of death from causes other than breast cancer compared to women not taking statins.