The Reasons Statins Can Cause Cancers
Statins are immunosuppressive drugs. This is why they can even be used in organ transplants. The world had no idea of this cancer provoking side effect of statins until the work of Ora Shovman in 2002. In his paper, "The Anti-inflammatory and Immunomodulatory Effects of Statins", he announced this fact to the world 12 years after the marketing of statins first began in 1987 and no one paid the slightest bit of attention.
This class of drugs was blessed by the FDA and marketed with little to nothing known about its possible range of effects on the human body.
Since then we have learned that the good that statins do, the diminished cardiovascular risk, has nothing to do with cholesterol lowering. This benefit is apparently due to the anti-inflammatory action of statins, for atherosclerosis is an inflammatory process. In retrospect, this was a colossal oversight in which everyone was to blame.
More recently we have learned how statins directly damage mitochondria, explaining why neuropathies, myopathies and many cases of ALS-like neuromuscular degeneration case are permanent. And now we understand the reality of statin associated cancer.
In the Prospective Study of Pravastatin in the Elderly at Risk (PROSPER) trial, a 3.2 year, high-risk 75 year old average age of participant study for cardiovascular disease prevention, cancer incidence was significantly increased in the pravastatin treated group.
Among the statin treated patients, the increase in cancer mortality was equal in magnitude to the decrease in cardiovascular disease mortality, leaving total mortality unchanged.
High-dose statin therapy may be more likely to promote tumor growth than low-dose statin therapy, particularly in women. The Treating New Targets (TNT) study, reporting on the effects of aggressive LDL cholesterol lowering in women with stable coronary heart disease ( median age of 63.5 years ) revealed a significant excess in cancer mortality among the women treated with Lipitor 80 mg daily compared to the women treated with Lipitor 10 mg daily.
Of primary interest to cancer researchers is that one of the means by which statins suppress the immune system is by increasing the numbers and functionality of certain of the blood lymphocytes known as regulatory T cells (Tregs). An increase in Treg numbers and functionality impairs the host anti-tumor responses.
Research has found that the higher the Treg cell count, the lower patient survival is. The elderly may be more susceptible to the immunosuppressive effects of statins since they are more likely to harbor occult tumor cells.
But statins' greatest contribution to cancer comes from Shovman's original paper in 2002 when he revealed that the primary mechanism of action of statins was the inhibition of nuclear factor kappa B, a transcriptase influencing our entire inflammatory and immunodefense system.
Inhibition of NF-kappa B is part of the mevalonate blockade problem of statins. Cancer provocation is not an isolated, one in a million event, it is seemingly inevitable.
Duane Graveline MD MPH
Former USAF Flight Surgeon
Former NASA Astronaut
Retired Family Doctor
