The raison d'etre of this website is to provide you with hard scientific information which may help you make informed decisions in your quest for health (so far I have blogged concise summaries of over 1,500 scientific studies and have had three books published).

My research is mainly focused on the effects of cholesterol, saturated fat and statin drugs on health. If you know anyone who is worried about their cholesterol levels and heart disease, or has been told to take statin drugs you could send them a link to this website, and to my statin or cholesterol or heart disease books.

David Evans

Independent Health Researcher

Monday 13 April 2015

Statin users of ten years have a 30% increased risk of colorectal cancer

This study was published in Pharmacoepidemiology and Drug Safety 2008 Sep;17(9):869-76

Study title and authors:
Chronic statin therapy and the risk of colorectal cancer.
Yang YX, Hennessy S, Propert K, Hwang WT, Sarkar M, Lewis JD.
Division of Gastroenterology, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA 19104-6021, USA. yangy@mail.med.upenn.edu

This study can be accessed at: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18412290

The study sought to clarify the association between long-term statin therapy and the risk of colorectal cancer. This study was conducted among patients aged 50 years or more and with five or more years of colorectal cancer-free initial follow-up. The study included 4,432 colorectal cancer patients and 44,292 control subjects.

The study found:
(a) Those who had been taking statins for five or more years had a 10% increased risk of colorectal cancer compared to non-users of statins.
(b) Those who had been taking statins for ten years had a 30% increased risk of colorectal cancer compared to non-users of statins.