I just read a recent review article on the role cholesterol plays in cancer. Specifically, they were highlighting the potential protective role of High Density Lipoprotein (HDL) Cholesterol for cancer. It has already been established that HDLs can improve coronoary heart disease. Basically, they do this by cleaning up Low Density Lipoprotein (LDL) Cholesterol that may get stuck to your blood vessels and cause atherosclerosis. The review reported on the the results of a study that found that for each 1 mg/dL increase in HDL cholesterol, men would have a 2% and women would have a 3% reduced risk of coronary heart disease. This was confirmed in other studies they reviewed.
This will be a long review, so please click the read more link below to find the rest of my discussion after the jump.
Currently, the medical treatment for reducing LDLs is prescribing statins. These drugs can decrease the levels of LDLs in the blood and increase HDLs. I've not been able to track down the research that describes exactly how HDLs are created (we might not know yet), but basically, it's a natural substance produced in our bodies that, compared to other cholesterols, has more protein than fat (so it basically all comes back to diet).
After it's basic description of cholesterol and cardiovascular disease, it finally gets into its application to cancer on page 3. They start by saying in 1990, it was proposed that high levels of HDL cholesterol may increase the risk of breast cancer, and this hypothesis was supported in only a few studies that used cancer cells in test tubes (read: just cause it happens in a lab doesn't mean it happens in the real world). Two studies tracked breast cancer incidence as it relates to cholesterol. The first lasted from 1964 and 1986, which found that higher levels of HDL cholesterol decreased the risk of breast cancer. The second study found no association between cholesterol and cancer risk.
Next, the review described how breast cancer patients have been found to have lower levels of HDL cholesterol. These studies suggest that there might be a mechanism by which breast cancer directly reduces HDL cholesterol levels in a woman, which could then put her at risk for cardiovascular disease after treatment. Other sets of studies found a similar correlation in lung cancer sufferers, and there's a possibility lymphoma risk is associated with low HDLs.
In conclusion, cancer of any type has the possibility of decreasing your HDL levels. Therefore, cancer survivors need to pay special attention to the fat content of their diet in order to reduce the risk of developing cardiovascular disease soon after recovering from cancer.
Citation: McGrowder et al., (2011) The role of high-density lipoproteins in reducing the risk of vascular diseases, neurogenerative disorders, and cancer. Cholesterol, Epub ahead of print
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