SUNDAY, March 25 (HealthDay News) -- There may exist a link between low levels of "scurvy" low-density lipoprotein (LDL) cholesterol and increased cancer danger, according to new research.

In the study, researchers looked at 201 cancer patients and 402 cancer-eager patients. They found that cancer patients who not at all took cholesterol-lowering drugs had poor LDL cholesterol levels for an mean proportion of about 19 years prior to their cancer diagnosis.

The finding suggests there may be some underlying mechanism that affects both LDL cholesterol levels and cancer jeopardy, the study authors said.

Still, other experts cautioned that the verdict is preliminary, and lowering your LDL levels is well known to cut the odds for the number undivided killer, heart disease.

The study was slated beneficial to presentation Sunday at the American College of Cardiology (ACC) recurring with the year meeting in Chicago.

Previous studies of cholesterol-threatening drugs have suggested a strong step between low LDL cholesterol levels and cancer put in peril. This new study is the in the ~ place to investigate the association between simple LDL cholesterol levels and cancer put to hazard over an extended period of time only in cancer patients who have never taken cholesterol-lowering medication, the researchers declared.

"There has been some combat for as to whether or not medications used to drop cholesterol may contribute to cancer, otherwise than that the evidence so far tells us that the drugs themselves carry into practice not increase the risk of cancer. We wanted to take those medications public of the equation and just mind at the link between cancer and gentle LDL cholesterol itself in people who had in no degree taken statins or other cholesterol-cloudy drugs," lead investigator Dr. Paul Michael Lavigne of Tufts Medical Center in Boston, declared in an ACC news release.

Although the study uncovered every association between low LDL levels and increased cancer venture, it did not prove a final ~-and-effect relationship.

A cardiology person specially versed weighed in on the new study.

"I firmly believe that lowering LDL cholesterol significantly lowers the jeopard of cardiovascular events, but the confederacy between low LDL cholesterol and cancer remnants a hypothesis that requires further testing," reported Dr. Jeffrey Berger, director of cardiovascular thrombosis at NYU Langone Medical Center and every assistant professor at the NYU School of Medicine in New York City.

"The copartnership between low LDL cholesterol and the jeopard of cancer has become a poultice of increasing interest, but conclusions cannot have existence drawn from this study," Berger added. "The study suggests that there may be some sort of unmatched attribute among subjects that already wish a low LDL cholesterol that may issue them susceptible to cancer, but what is yet to be studies will have to look at why that is."

Study author Lavigne said the findings do not suggest that having unhandsome LDL cholesterol somehow leads to the expansion of cancer, and urged patients by high LDL cholesterol to continue treatment to lower their LDL cholesterol in bid to prevent heart disease.

"There is ~t any evidence to indicate that lowering your cholesterol with a medication in any way predisposes to a hazard for cancer. We suspect there may subsist some underlying mechanism affecting both cancer and unbecoming LDL cholesterol, but we can alone say definitively that the relationship betwixt the two exists for many years foregoing to cancer diagnosis, and therefore underscores the distress for further examination," Lavigne declared.

Another expert agreed that patients should not abjure cholesterol-lowering lifestyle changes or medications based up~ the new findings.

Dr. David Friedman, supreme of heart failure services at North Shore Plainview Hospital in Plainview, N.Y., said that "statins used for LDL reduction shouldn't be stopped if there is an appropriate use to humble heart disease risk."

Because this study was presented at a healing meeting, the data and conclusions should exist viewed as preliminary until published in a mate-reviewed journal.

More information

The American Heart Association has besides about good and bad cholesterol.

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