all too is too much - cholesterol, statines and cancer

july 24 2007


A few years now I'm in a friendly debate with my doctor.

Coming of a family with all people die from cancer on both sides, I'm very aware something must be in my genes that makes me more susceptible than others.

I've always had very low cholesterol and was praised by the doctors.
I assumed it was a lack of something, as I valued french fries, whipped cream and other cholesterol boosting stuff in more than average amounts without gaining a single gram.
I was 56 kilo when I got diabetes and soon after I gained weight like a freighter is loaded.
My cholesterol stayed down.

Then I got the medication. My glucose had to be kept down, and as a sandwich already made it rise sky high there was no escape.
My cholesterol raised when my glucose levels dropped.

So I got statines.
I tried several kinds. Some made mee feel pain in, as it seemed, almost every muscle of my body, some made me dizzy and others made me loosse control over my movement.

I sticked with the last one. I take a quarter of the prescribed dosage, which keeps the cholesterollevel just below maximum.

Researchers in Boston now came up with the conclusion of a reviewstudy of 13 trials with 40,000 people.
(So they didn't conduct the studies themselves)
The concluded there's one cancercase more per 1,000 people who cut their cholesterol levels with statins, than those with higher levels of cholestrol.

I'm always delighted with results like these.
Why?

I love how the media try to get out of it whatever they want.
Some say you get more cancer when your bad cholesterol is low, others say different things.

Problem is that we don't know exactly what they have found in this study.

• The raised cancer incidence might be related to the use of statines. It's plain dirt.
• It might be related to low bad cholesterol, not to intermediate or high levels. It's already a finding that is accepted among groups of doctors.
• It might be related to the combination of statines with low cholesterol (an option the researchers forgot.)
• It might even be the result of the ways the studies were designed, conducted or to the statistical tests used or the wording of the results.

As in the past the benefits of lowering cholesterol with statines has been proved, they write in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology that the benefits of statins outweigh the risks.
The risk of heart disease (heart attacks and strokes) is lowered, and that is proofed and accepted worldwide.

I still think that too much about medication is decided without input of the patients.

Isn't it up to us if we want to take the risk, which risk and if we can life with the side-effects of medication for the rest of our lives?