Advertise With UsAdvertise on our extensive network of industry websites and newsletters.
Get the PBR newsletterSign up to our free email to get all the latest PBR
news.A new study has refuted previous findings that statins might cut the risk of developing prostate cancer by reducing production of the male hormones that fuel cancer growth.
Subscribe to our email newsletter
Researchers from the New England Research Institutes found that, while men using statins did indeed have lower blood levels of androgens such as testosterone, it was more likely to be attributable to poor health than the use of statins.
“That doesn’t mean that statins may be lowering prostate cancer risk through one or more alternative pathways, but it doesn’t appear to be working through reduction of male hormones,” said study author Susan Hall, a research scientist at the New England Research Institutes.
Statins lower cholesterol and are commonly prescribed to treat and prevent heart disease. Since cholesterol is required for the production of male hormones, researchers have theorized that statins may reduce production of these hormones. However, studies on statin use and prostate cancer risk have had mixed results, according to Ms Hall.
To study a narrow question – whether statin use reduces androgen concentrations in the blood – the researchers examined data from the Boston Area Community Health (BACH) survey, a population-based, US National Institutes of Health-sponsored, epidemiologic study. Data were collected between 2002 and 2005 on thousands of men and women with equal representation of African American, Caucasian and Hispanic populations.
Ms Hall’s team studied the medical histories of 1,812 men, including 237 statin users, and analyzed their blood for ‘free’ or unbound testosterone, for total testosterone, and for other associated compounds.
The researchers found no relationship between statin use and free testosterone and most of the other associated compounds. There was a significant association between statin use and level of total testosterone in the blood, but that association vanished when researchers considered the patients’ age, body weight, and history of cardiovascular disease and diabetes.
“We know that men with higher body mass index, diabetes and cardiovascular disease tend to have lower testosterone levels, and this largely accounted for the drop in testosterone in statin users,” Ms Hall said.
“In this study, statin use was just a marker for presence of other illnesses,” she said. “This study may inform that debate, however, by suggesting that any protective pathway offered by statins, if it exists, is not through androgen suppression.”