Statins are drugs which lower the level of ‘bad cholesterol’in your body. Cholesterol is essential for your body to work well, but too much ‘bad cholesterol’ (low-density lipoprotein or LDL) is unhealthy as they help to transport multiple different fat molecules, within the water around cells and within the bloodstream.
High levels of ‘bad cholesterol’ in your blood can lead to fatty deposits building up in your arteries, leading to an atheroma. This can increase your risk of developing cardiovascular disease which includes conditions such ascoronary heart disease (angina and heart attack) and stroke.
An article by the Daily Express has suggested that a daily dose of statins have shown to block the growth and spread of tumors based on a laboratory research into the role of a genetic mutation in the development of breast cancer using cell cultures at Columbia University. During the experiment, cells generated from breast cancer tumors carrying the mutation were grown. The researchers then interfered with the effects of the genetic mutation, to find that around half the cells reverted back to normal, non-cancerous structures. They explored this phenomenon further by identifying how this gene affects the cells, and found that simvastatin, one type of statin, reduced cancer cell growth and increased cancer cell death.
