Cholesterol and Cancer

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I did not know that people with high cholesterol levels have a reduced risk of getting cancer. Did you? All I have ever seen or heard is that cholesterol is bad. But here is an essay by Dr. Malcolm Kendrick with the statement that high cholesterol is associated with low cancer as well as other risks for mortality. This is in his essay about the abuse of science and the corruption of medicine in general and medical journals in particular by pharmaceutical companies with big money.

- Morley


May 24, 2005

STATINS AND CANCER - (NOW IT IS GETTING SILLY)

By Red Flags Columnist, Dr. Malcolm Kendrick

I was not sure whether to even bother responding to the latest news that statins prevent breast cancer. But I think I must, as I believe we are now entering very dangerous ground with statins. We are moving beyond accentuating the positive towards a total distortion of the facts. Over the last year or so, I have seen articles stating that statins prevent Alzheimer’s, prostate cancer, heart failure and now breast cancer. I have seen, and groaned.

"When we looked at statin use prior to breast cancer, what we found was that users of statins were 51 per cent less likely to develop breast cancer as opposed to those who were not using a statin," Dr Khurana said.

How, you may ask, can this be true when the latest TNT study, CARE, J-LIT, ASCOT-LLA and other too numerous to mention seemed to show a significant trend towards increased cancer in those taking statins.

The answer is that these studies are not mutually contradictory – just the way they are interpreted. Dr Khurana’s study was not a placebo controlled clinical trial. He, and his team, merely looked at forty thousand women, and found that those given statins were less likely to have breast cancer.

He decided to interpret this as possible proof that statins protect against cancer. But there are three possible explanations for this finding:

· Chance

· Statins protect against breast cancer

· Women given statins were less likely to get breast cancer in the first place

Explanation one is possible, but uninteresting. Explanation two would contradict many of the statin trails, where rates of cancer were higher in those taking statins. Ergo, it seems unlikely to be correct.

Explanation three, however, fits what is already known about cholesterol levels, statins and cancer risk. Firstly, we know that those given statins will have higher cholesterol levels than those not given statins. Secondly, study after study has shown that people with high cholesterol levels are at a greatly reduced risk of cancer.

You may have seen the study in Geriatrics earlier this year demonstrating that, in the elderly, a low cholesterol level was associated with a doubled risk of death – from all causes - especially cancer. A much, much bigger study was done in Austria, looking at cholesterol levels vs. risk of death. One hundred and fifty thousand people were studied over fifteen years.

‘In men, across the entire age range, although of borderline significance under the age of 50, and in women from the age of 50 onward only, low cholesterol was significantly associated with all-cause mortality, showing significant associations with death through cancer, liver diseases, and mental diseases.’

So, we give statins to a group of women who – because they have high cholesterol levels – are at a significantly reduced risk of cancer. When they are found to have a lower risk of cancer on statins, we claim that statins reduce the risk of cancer.

We then receive large sums of money from statin manufacturing company X. We then become a respected international opinion leader. We are then asked to sit on committees making up guidelines on the prevention of heart disease. We then act as peer-reviewers for journals so that when someone writes a letter such as the one below, written to the NEJM – we can reject it.

TO THE EDITOR: La Rosa et al.(1) claim to have shown significant clinical benefit from 80mg of atorvastatin per day compared with 10mg per day. The clinical benefits claimed were solely in selected cardiovascular end points. There was no increase in overall survival since there were more deaths from malignancies and other fatal conditions. For every malignancy that was fatal, or other condition that proved fatal, many more malignancies or other potentially fatal conditions must have been diagnosed. The morbidity from serious non-cardiac conditions is never considered in studies of statins where there is no increase in survival with treatment.

Exchanging a cardiac death for the prolonged misery of death from a malignancy or from another fatal condition can hardly be claimed to be a clinical benefit. The purveyors of the statins need to look with more objectivity at the overall effects of those agents. Even when there is an apparently impressive increase in overall survival, the real gains are negligible (2).
Louis H. Krut, MB.ChB., M.D.

1. La Rosa JC, Grundy SM, Waters DD, et al. Intensive lipid lowering with atorvastatin in patients with stable coronary disease. N Engl J Med 2005;323:1425-35.
2. Krut LH. On the statins, correcting plasma lipid levels, and preventing the clinical sequelae of atherosclerotic coronary heart disease. Amer J Cardiol 1998;81:1045-6.

http://www.thincs.org/Malcolm3.htm#may%2024

Cholesterol

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Here's what Wikipedia says about cholesterol. Anyone can find this in one second on the Web.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cholesterol

Cholesterol is a lipidic, waxy steroid found in the cell membranes and transported in the blood plasma of all animals.[2] It is an essential component of mammalian cell membranes, where it is required to establish proper membrane permeability and fluidity. In addition, cholesterol is an important precursor molecule for the biosynthesis of bile acids, steroid hormones, and several fat-soluble vitamins. Cholesterol is the principal sterol synthesized by animals, but small quantities are synthesized in other eukaryotes, such as plants and fungi. It is almost completely absent among prokaryotes, which include bacteria.[3]
The name cholesterol originates from the Greek chole- (bile) and stereos (solid), and the chemical suffix -ol for an alcohol, as François Poulletier de la Salle first identified cholesterol in solid form in gallstones, in 1769. However, it was only in 1815 that chemist Eugène Chevreul named the compound "cholesterine".[4]

Overview
Since cholesterol is essential for all animal life, it is primarily synthesized from simpler substances within the body. However, high levels in blood circulation, depending on how it is transported within lipoproteins, are strongly associated with progression of atherosclerosis. For a person of about 68 kg (150 pounds), typical total body cholesterol synthesis is about 1 g (1,000 mg) per day, and total body content is about 35 g. Typical daily additional dietary intake, in the United States and societies with similar dietary patterns, is 200–300 mg. The body compensates for cholesterol intake by reducing the amount synthesized.

Cholesterol is recycled. It is excreted by the liver via the bile into the digestive tract. Typically about 50% of the excreted cholesterol is reabsorbed by the small bowel back into the bloodstream. Intestinal tract absorption is highly selective for cholesterol, excreting plant stanols and sterols (which promote atherosclerosis progression more than cholesterol), back into the intestinal lumen for elimination.

The Big Question
My own serum cholesterol is extremely high (9.5 mmol/L or 366.7 mg/dL) yet I do not have any of the problems supposedly associated with this "condition". Why not? I was tortured for eight years and then almost killed when they lowered my cholesterol. Of course no one wants to know about this.
http://www.morleyevans.com/Contents/FDA_Letter/FDA_Letter.html

Winston Churchill: 'Men occasionally stumble over the truth, but most of them pick themselves up and hurry off as if nothing had happened.' To this, I would add that those who learn something are written off as cranks.

INVICTUS

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OUT of the night that covers me,
Black as the Pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever gods may be
For my unconquerable soul.

In the fell clutch of circumstance
I have not winced nor cried aloud.
Under the bludgeonings of chance
My head is bloody, but unbowed.

Beyond this place of wrath and tears
Looms but the Horror of the shade,
And yet the menace of the years
Finds and shall find me unafraid.

It matters not how strait the gate,
How charged with punishments the scroll
I am the master of my fate:
I am the captain of my soul.

-William Ernest Henley

Fort Hood Massacre

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Of course, Nidal Hasan is insane and his insanity was doubtless cultivated by his religion [whatever that might be]. Hasan finally resorted to violence. Shocking, but not surprising. So what about the ten or fifteen thousand soldiers at Fort Hood, TX? Are they there to meditate on the gospel? Is peace and love their main preoccupation? Well actually, no. Fort Hood is their final stop before they are sent off to kill and maim people in Iraq and Afghanistan and Pakistan and someday soon Iran. They wear uniforms, march around, shoot at targets, undergo indoctrination, learn how to inflict pain and death, and follow orders as they do their best to become homicidal maniacs. At least that is what their trainers would like most. Hasan wanted to get out of the Army. Doubtless, many other soldiers want to get out of the Army. But they will all go off to "do their duty" anyway.

Who is crazy here?

Dr. Raúl García

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Dr. Raúl García
1-1401 Dewdney Ave.
(Pasqua Hospital)
Regina SK S4T1A5
FAX: (306) 522-8252

CC: Dr. Carmela Giocoli

Date: 20091119
RE: eye surgery

Dear Dr. García,

You operated to repair a small retinal tear at the top of my right eye on 28 July of this year. I want to thank you for the time and attention you gave me. I have had some very bad experiences with doctors here in Regina. You are head and shoulders above them, I am pleased to say.

I just now posted an evaluation at www.RateMDs.com.

“In July 2009, Dr. Garcia repaired a small tear in my retina after a referral by Dr. Giocoli, my optometrist. I had a short wait of only a few days before seeing Dr. Garcia. I found his clinic excellent, clean and well-managed. Surgery went very well. Dr. Garcia and his assistant took time to very carefully examine my eye during the post-op examination a month after surgery. I wish some other doctors I have endured here in Regina were up to Dr. Garcia's standards. He could give them some lessons.”

Some other comments on that site criticize you for not being warm and charming. The doctors who caused me so much trouble were warm and charming. You have nothing to learn from them.

Sincerely,
- Morley Evans

SENT BY FAX

Turning Point

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Medicine may be at a turning point today similar to where it was at the beginning of the 20th century. Back then, most doctors were reluctant to accept that germs had anything to do with illness. They fought the idea. Doctors would go from the autopsy table to the delivery room without even washing their hands! Viruses were largely unknown until after the Second World War. Not much is known about viruses even now. Believe it or not.

Society's number one expense, medicine, is in a crisis. Medical doctors and their partners in the pharmaceutical industry have come a cropper. They are unable to solve the riddles of cardiovascular disease, cancer or even the common cold. Despite unrelenting propaganda to the contrary, not every doctor can work miracles.

Doctors have resisted the idea that nutrition has anything to do with illness, despite Dr. Goldberger [1] having cured Pellagra with vegetables 94 years ago and British sailors being cured of Scurvy [2] with limes and other citrus fruit three hundred years ago. Yet a doctor's opinion is valued above all others, as always. Why? Doctors prescribed mercury pills for the Chin emperor [3] so he would enjoy immortality and doctors would have prescribed more hokum for the Pharaohs before that. Quackery is well established with the established.

Happily, a few doctors today have seen the light on nutrition and some important doctors [4] have endorsed Juice Plus+ [5] and the science that supports it. A word of caution though is that "science" also supports pharmaceutical nostrums such as Statins that doctors prescribe every day. Notwithstanding past errors, one day soon nutrition will be endorsed by "main-stream" medicine. A quiet revolution may be underway.

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pellagra
[2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scurvy
[3] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qin_Shi_Huang
[4] https://www.juiceplus.com/nsa/content/HealthProfessionals.soa
[5] https://canada.juiceplus.com/nsa/content/Home.soa?site=me19491