Research Shows High HDL or Good Cholesterol May Lower Risk of Cancer

If you have ever listened to the warnings of one of those television commercials about the side effects of cholesterol lowering medications you may wonder if it is safe to even take them. And if the dangers of high cholesterol versus taking the medication to lower the cholesterol is really more dangerous.

Well an interesting research project shows that maintaining a healthy level of cholesterol may actually protect you from cancer.

Researchers at Tufts Medical Center in Boston did a study of 24 trials that actually investigated the pros and cons of taking blood cholesterol lowering agents such as the statin therapies. They focused on the HDL (high density lipoportein) cholesterol. This is the "good" cholesterol and protects the heart and compared this to the incidence of cancer.

The Higher your HDL or Good Cholesterol the Lower the Rate of Cancer.

The simple results showed the higher your good cholesterol or HDL the lower the rate of cancer. It showed a 36% lower rate of cancer for every 10mg/dL of higher HDL. These were pretty strong results. Even after adjustments were made for other factors that can influence your level of cholesterol and the potential for cancer development, including BMI, age, diabetes, gender, tobacco use, and your dangerous cholesterol or LDL ( low density lipoprotein, the bad cholesterol that clogs your arteries and leads to heart disease).

There were a total of 145,743 patients in the study and there was a follow up of five years.

It is Already Known How Important Good Cholesterol is to Our Health

We already know how important our good cholesterol or HDL is for our bodies. Remember, our bodies produce cholesterol naturally. And HDL is what transports that good cholesterol to the liver and keeping cholesterol moving throughout the circulatory system. High HDL levels reduces the risk of heart disease by 2-3 times the lower HDL levels. So now we have yet another important function of HDL in our bodies.

How is it that HDL May Protect Us From Cancer?

Some theories have been developed as to how HDL might protect us from cancer. One is that HDL may be an antioxidant that protect against cell damage. Damaged cells cause an increase in cancer development. HDL may cause a stronger immune system and ability to fight cancer cells. And HDL may have anti-inflammatory abilities that could inhibit cancer cell growth and cause an environment in our bodies that cancer cells cannot thrive.

The researchers continue with low HDL blood levels could help doctors identify patients who are at risk It might be an important marker for all lifestyle risk factors that we already know contribute to heart disease and cancer such as smoking, overweight and inflammation. It is already known that low HDL levels indicate chronic disease risk.

Low HDL levels May Help Diagnose Patients at Risk

So whether high HDL levels are protective or low HDL indicates risk since low HDL levels reflect chronic conditions such as inflammation and insulin resistance, which directly affect cardiac disease and development of cancer.

So according to this study it would seem that it is very important to lower your bad cholesterol and increase your good cholesterol and to control what you can in your lifestyle and health risk factors to increase your chances of having a healthy long life.

Source:

WebMD

CNN