Will Taking Statins Cause Colon Cancer?

To be fair, if your risk of developing colon cancer in any given year is 4 in 1000 and it goes up by 25 percent because you take a statin, it's still just 5 in 1000. If the risk more than doubles (in this study, the ratio was 2.53 to 1), then your risk of getting colon cancer in the next year, without taking any other factors into account, is still just 1 in 100. The information in this study is much more important for policy makers, who are concerned about whether there are 10,000 cases needing treatment next year or maybe there will be 20,000, but it's not terribly significant to you. Statin side effects, on the other hand, don't worry policy makers but can be a huge problem for you. The bottom line for individuals simply trying to lead healthy lives is:

Doctors get hung up on the fact that statins seem to do a number of great things and they lower cholesterol, so the thing to do is give you more and more and stronger and stronger statins to lower your cholesterol. Don't take Lipitor, take Crestor. Don't take 10 mg, take 40 mg. If there were just some way to get you to a negative cholesterol number, you'd live forever. This is an example of what researchers call indication bias.

Cholesterol researcher is riddled with indication bias. The fundamental problem in a lot of the research is that researchers assume there is a direct relationship between cholesterol and a health outcome, when in fact there are many intermediate steps.

Take the example of cholesterol and heart disease. Yes, there is cholesterol in the plaques that can "harden" arteries. But that's not all that is in these plaques, and plaques are not the only factor in a heart attack or congestive heart failure. First cholesterol gets deposited in the lining of an artery. Then a white blood cell comes along to use it as fuel and gets stuck. Then the white blood cell dies and other white blood cells come along to remove it. They also get stuck. They die. They calcify. The entire mass hardens. If a blood clot forms, then the artery can't expand enough to let it pass, or maybe it can. If the blood clot impedes circulation, then heart tissue may die, or not, if oxygen is returned to the heart slowly enough. The whole idea that taking a statin just to lower cholesterol reduces risk of heart disease lacks a nuanced understanding of the process.

READ Evidence That Statins Stimulate Atherosclocrosis And Heart Failure

However, if your doctor only has five minutes for you and some reviewer will certainly ask why you aren't on a statin drug, then you are going to get a statin drug. Just don't be afraid to ask questions about why you really need a statin drug, and if you have a family history of colon cancer, ask your doctor if a statin to reduce cholesterol levels is really right for you.