TAKING statins slashes the risk of deadly prostate cancer by a quarter, a landmark study suggests.
Scientists believe the cholesterol-busting pills ease inflammation and boost immunity in the gland.
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They analysed data on 44,126 men who were free of prostate cancer and tracked for 24 years.
During this period, medics diagnosed 6,305 such tumours and classified 801 as “lethal”.
This means they had already spread by the time they were found, spread later or proved fatal.
Fellas who took statins at any point were 24 per cent less likely to get lethal prostate cancer.
But the drugs made no difference to the odds of getting a less aggressive form of the disease.
Millions of Brits take the 4p-a-day pills to lower their risk of heart attack and stroke.
Now the boffins want trials to establish if fellas at low risk of heart disease should also take them.
Dr Emma Allott, from Queen’s University Belfast, said her study is the first to identify a potential protective effect of statins on lethal prostate cancer.
‘AGGRESIVE & DEADLY’
She added: “Some prostate cancers are slow growing and will not affect the man over the course of his lifetime, but others are aggressive and often deadly.
“My work is to understand the biology driving these different types of prostate cancer in order to reduce the number of men who develop this lethal form of the disease.
“By studying a large group of men who had been monitored for 24 years, we were able to see the link between statin use and the prevention of lethal prostate cancer.
“We then looked at tissue samples from some of these men to try and understand why the statin use was having this impact.
“Although the findings are at an early stage, we were able to see that statin use may affect inflammation and immunity levels in the prostates of some men as well as having an effect on the characteristics of the tumour itself.
“Our findings are in agreement with some of the known biology of statins but are the first to observe these effects in prostate cancer.”
There are 47,700 new cases of prostate cancer in the UK each year, with 11,700 deaths.
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It is the most common form of cancer in men, with around 130 diagnoses a day.
Dr Robert O’Connor, of the Irish Cancer Society, said: “While we are not recommending that men start taking statins unless prescribed to do so, this study provides us with building blocks to further explore how statins could be used to combat aggressive prostate cancer in the future.”
The findings are published in the journal Clinical Cancer Research.
