Cholesterol cancer risk factor

The death rate for heart disease has actually been declining over the past few decades, while the number of patients with CAD is increasing. This may reflect increasing quality of medical care, but it should be noted that in the elderly, heart disease becomes an ever more important cause of death, much more so than cancer. There are also concerns that while a lot of attention has been directed at smoking and cholesterol as risk factors, hypertension and diabetes are emerging as the next generation of major risk factors and are further accentuated in our increasingly obese and sedentary society. 

Fibre drinks, containing both soluble and insoluble fibres (non-starch polysaccharides). These drinks add bulk to the diet and increase stool weight (a low stool weight is associated with an increased risk of bowel cancer and gall stones). Fibre also binds cholesterol (a risk factor for heart disease), thus reducing its adsorption from the intestine. To support a claim, the quantity of drink consumed in a day must provide at least 3 g of fibre, i.e. one-sixth of the recommended daily allowance of 18 g. 

The clinical problems that arise in the menopause are hot flushes, sweating, depression, decreased libido, increased risk of cardiovascular disease and osteoporosis. The latter results in increased incidence of hip, radial and vertebral fractures. Oestrogen is one factor controlling synthesis of active vitamin D and osteoporosis is in part due to a deficiency of vitamin D. Not surprisingly, to reduce these problems, administration of oestrogen is recommended (known as hormone replacement therapy or HRT). HRT reduces some of the risk factors for coronary artery disease since it reduces blood pressure and decreases the blood level of LDL-cholesterol and increases that of HDL-cholesterol. However, there is considerable debate about whether HRT increases the risk of breast or endometrial cancer. 

Schaffner, C. P. Bril, D. R. Singhall, A. K. Presence epoxy-cholesterols in the aging human prostrate gland as a risk factor in cancer. In Proceedings Fourth International Symposium on the Prevention and Detection of Cancer, London. July (1980). 

The second area of growing importance is that of susceptibility to disease. It has long been known that some common diseases run in families, although it was not known why. For the same reason, known disease risk factors carry very different levels of risk for different individuals. For example, in Topic 19 we met LDL, one of the proteins associated with transport of cholesterol. This has to dock with a specific protein receptor, the LDL receptor, at cell surfaces. A variety of mutations in the gene for the LDL receptor cause familial hypercholesterolaemia affected individuals have a much enhanced risk of heart disease. Detailed study of the human genome is likely to throw up many more correlations of this kind for various kinds of cancer and other diseases. It has recently been found that a polymorphism related to survival of mediaeval plague epidemics may also be responsible for certain individuals remarkable resistance to the HIV infection that causes AIDS ... 

The combination of n-3 polyunsaturated fatty acids with PS is having an emerging interest it has been reported that it is effective in reducing the levels of inflammation markers [38, 46] and cardiovascular risk factors including total cholesterol and triglyceride concentrations, pro-aggregatory factors, eicosanoid, and thromboxane A2 levels [47]. Moreover, MicaUef et al. [38] estimated that sunola or fish oils (4.0 g day ), which are rich in n-3 fatty acids, were more efficient in reducing cancer risk when administered in combination with 2.0 g day of PS than when administered alone. 

FAT AND HEALTH PROBLEMS. Fats either cause heart disease or cancer—or so it seems. As for coronary heart disease, the blame on fats arises primarily from two factors (1) atherosclerotic deposits in blood vessels are composed of cholesterol and other fatty substances and (2) increases in certain fat components of the blood contribute to atherosclerosis. Fats are transported in the blood in the form of lipid-protein complexes—lipoproteins. It is the blood levels of cholesterol, triglycerides, and certain lipoproteins which are considered risk factors in the development of heart disease. 

Palmitoleic acid is another fatty acid that deserves a brief mention. There have been reports concerning a correlation between palmitoleic acid levels in plasma and tissues and CVD risk factors. There are claims for hypocholesterolemic and hypo-glyceridemic activities, enhancement of HDL cholesterol and depression of LDL cholesterol levels, reduction of stroke incidence, and protection against certain cancers in animal models (Yang, Gunstone, and Kallio, 2003). However, the amount of data is limited and further investigations of these effects are required. 

It has been suspected that low concentrations of serum cholesterol might be associated with an increased risk of cancer or overall mortality. All fibrates and statins cause cancer in rodents, but the relevance of this finding to man has been questioned (68). In an epidemiological study these risks were almost non-existent after adjusting for confounding factors. 

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