If your wellness is affected by chronic hepatitis C, you’re less likely to develop liver cancer if you take cholesterol-lowering drugs. This is according to new research from Taiwan, published this week in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, which found that higher doses of statins, as well as longer-term use, were linked to a drop in cancer risk in hepatitis sufferers.
However, wellness experts have argued that the report isn’t able to prove that statins ward off cancer, and it’s far too early to recommend using the popular medications solely for liver cancer prevention. Dr Hashem El-Serag, a liver disease researcher from the Baylor College of Medicine and Michael E. DeBakey VA Medical Centre in Houston, commented, ‘Observational studies do suggest a significant, modest reduction in the risk of (liver cancer) among patients with chronic liver disease who take statins. The downside to the observational studies, including this study, is because they are non-randomized, the decision to give statins to a patient with hepatitis C may or may not depend on factors that have a lot to do with severity of liver disease.’
Led by Dr Pau-Chung Chen, researchers from the National Taiwan University College of Public Health in Taipei tracked roughly 261,000 people with hepatitis C from 1999 through 2010, using nationwide data. Approximately 13% filled a prescription for statins during that time and 28,000 people were diagnosed with liver cancer by 2011 or, in other words, about 1% of those with hepatitis C each year. The researchers discovered statin takers reduced their risk of cancer by half, when compared with non-statin users, and this was after accounting for patients’ age, gender and other diseases.
Chen noted, ‘We feel more confident that statins do not cause harm in patients with liver disease.’ He surmised that the reason statins may work to reduce cancer risk is that they slow the growth of malignant cells, or else they may prevent the hepatitis C virus from replicating. He did allow that the study is limited by the fact that the researchers could not measure other health and lifestyle factors that influence people’s risk of liver cancer, such as weight, and smoking and drinking habits.
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