Do statins work or not?

[kryciakrycia]

Recent very interesting report by a reputable hospital:

urotoday.com/recent-abstrac...

[tom67inMA]

The problem with every statin study I've seen, including this one, is that they are retrospective. This means that the patient group on statins are self selecting in that they are on a statin because of high cholesterol. This is very different from a controlled trial where half of patients are given a statin regardless of the need to control cholesterol.

On the other hand, if you look at cholesterol and prostate cancer, there does appear to be an association: ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articl..., so if you do have elevated cholesterol it would make sense to be on a statin. If the statin dose is just enough bring cholesterol levels to normal or near normal, then your cancer risk is normalized, assuming the statin doesn't have any extra magical effect beyond lowering cholesterol.

Thus, when you compare prostate cancer outcomes between statin users and non-users, you see either no effect, or that the statin users have worse outcomes. Could it be that the group that isn't on statins have lower cholesterol and thus a better prognosis?

[Drphil1938 in reply to tom67inMA]

My experience is that statins are ineffective. I have been on Lipitor since 1996 and I was DX March this year Gleason 9, with 7 bone mets and lymph nodes in groin.

My guess is that the last sentence of your post is the key.

[tom67inMA in reply to Drphil1938]

I was on simvastatin for years, but went off them for a number of months due to a mix up with the doctor that I didn't follow up on. It was during this time that symptoms began to develop and I was diagnosed. Advanced cancer doesn't develop overnight, so obviously it was brewing while I was still on a statin, but it's very curious that it sort of exploded onto the scene (PSA from 2 to 216 in 13 months) while off a statin.

Suffice to say I'm on Lipitor now and have been following the statin studies very closely

[donits in reply to tom67inMA]

Hi Friends,

I participate in a clinical trial and I take atorvastatin/placebo and bicalutamide 150mg. I have a PSA test in four weeks. I recently read an interesting publication (published January 6, 2020): Statins may do double duty on heart disease and cancer ([e-mail].)

I also found an interesting article on the internet: Atorvastatin and

celecoxib in combination inhibits the... ncb.nim.nih.gov

Happy New Year!