"In a new study of middleaged New Jersey men taking cholesterollowering drugs was linked to a lower chance of dying from prostate cancer.  The findings dont prove that the drugs called statins ward off aggressive cancer. But they jibe with previous studies suggesting that getting cholesterol levels under control might help reduce the risk of lifethreatening disease researchers said.  People may be on these medications for their heart but it may actually be doing them some good for their prostate said study author Dr. Stephen Marcella from the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey in New Brunswick.  If a persons on the fence about taking a statin medication for their heart this is another potential benefit they may have by taking one of these he told Reuters Health.  Marcella and his colleagues collected the medical records of  men who had died of prostate cancer and another  of the same age and race without prostate cancer or with nonlethal cancer.  Most of the men were white and in their mid to lates on average. Close to one in four of the men in both groups combined had ever taken a statin.  The researchers found that men who died of prostate cancer were half as likely to have taken a statin at any time and for any duration than men in the control group.  When they accounted for whether or not men were overweight and their other health problems and medications it turned out that those with fatal cancers were  percent less likely to have ever taken a statin according to findings published in Cancer.  But Marcella added I would not tell a person if they dont have a risk of heart disease if they dont have hypertension...to take a statin just to prevent lethal prostate cancer.  The evidence thats effective he said just isnt there yet.  And even if statins do turn out to help prevent fatal prostate cancer researchers said previous studies have suggested they dont lower a mans risk of getting less aggressive forms of the disease.  According to the American Cancer Society about one in every six men will be diagnosed with prostate cancer at some point and one in every  men will die of the disease.  Marcellas team didnt have the data to figure out if taking a statin for longer or starting one earlier was more beneficial than more limited use of the drugs.  VERY TRICKY TO SORT OUT  The researchers also couldnt tell whether men started using statins before or after they were diagnosed with aggressive cancer.  ADVERTISING But they did find that while highpotency often newer statins were linked to a lower risk of fatal prostate cancer lowerpotency drugs were not. That suggests its something about the drugs themselves that lower mens chances of dying from prostate cancer Marcella said.  Statins may protect against fatal prostate cancer through their known cholesterollowering effects said Dr. Stephen Freedland who studies prostate cancer at the Duke University Medical Center in Durham but wasnt involved in the new study.  He said that cholesterol is a key nutrient for cancer cells so lower cholesterol levels in the body could prevent more aggressive forms of cancer from developing.  But its also possible that statins dont prevent certain cancers at all Freedland said and its something else about men who take statins  for example if they also change their diet and start exercising  that explains their lower risk of fatal cancer.  It gets very very tricky to sort out Freedland told Reuters Health.  To prove that statins protect against aggressive cancer would require a large study in which cancerfree men or those with earlystage disease are randomly assigned to take statins or not and then tracked for years to see how many of them die from cancer.  That type of study especially involving healthy diseasefree men would be very expensive and time consuming said Dr. Nelly Tan from the University of California Los Angeles who has studied statins and prostate cancer risk.  About onequarter of adults age  and older in the U.S. take statins to lower cholesterol and protect against heart attacks. The drugs run anywhere from  to more than  per month and sometimes cause side effects including muscle pain nausea and gas and liver dysfunction.  Researchers agreed that until theres clearer evidence for benefit men with healthy hearts shouldnt seek out statin prescriptions for the purpose of lowering their prostate cancer risks.  But Freedland said that other strategies for lowering cholesterol  such as eating better and exercising regularly  are ways almost everyone can lower their disease risks in the meantime.  SOURCE bit.lyvAokK httpbit.lyvAokK Cancer online December  . Our StandardsThe Thomson Reuters Trust Principles. httpthomsonreuters.comenaboutustrustprinciples.html"