Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology› Cancer Research› Cancer, Lipids, and Metabolism

Cancer epidemiology — LDL cholesterol lowering with statins

Submitted 2026-10-23

Field: Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology › Cancer ResearchType: No effect foundArea: cancer epidemiologyArea: cardiovascular preventionTarget: LDL cholesterol lowering with statinsStage: full study

Hypothesis

Lowering LDL cholesterol with statins, especially to very low levels, would change cancer risk.

What failed

In individual data from 175,000 people in 27 trials, about 5 years of statin therapy had no effect on cancer incidence (RR 1.00) or cancer death (RR 1.00), at any of 23 cancer sites, for any statin, or in people who started with low LDL.

Broken assumption

Lowering LDL cholesterol to very low levels raises the risk of cancer.

Why

The abstract does not give a cause. The concern that low cholesterol promotes cancer was not supported.

From the published paper: Collaboration et al. PLoS ONE, 2012. ↗CC BY

Research ideas from this failure

Unvetted lead — read the papers

New hypotheses this failure suggests, each with a crucial experiment, a rival explanation of the original result, and the papers it rests on. Written by AI from paper titles and abstracts found on OpenAlex (and Europe PMC, for life and health sciences).

Related failures (2)

Matched on shared genes, mechanisms and ways of failing as well as wording. Each shows why it matched — treat these as leads rather than verdicts.

Links in published research

Where this experiment's genes are known to matter outside its own research area, and the papers behind those links. Sources: Open Targets Platform and Europe PMC.