high cholesterol

High cholesterol linked to greater breast cancer risk

High cholesterol linked to greater breast cancer risk

In a significant discovery, scientists have found a link between high blood cholesterol and breast cancer in a study of more than one million patients over a 14 year time period in Britain.

“Our preliminary study suggests that women with high cholesterol in their blood may be at a greater risk of getting breast cancer,” said Rahul Potluri, founder of the Algorithm for Comorbidities, Associations, Length of stay and Mortality (ACALM) study.

It raises the possibility of preventing breast cancer with statins, which lowers cholesterol, he added. The researchers conducted a retrospective analysis of more than one million patients across Britain between 2000 and 2013.

There were 664,159 women and of these, 22,938 had hyperlipidaemia and 9,312 had breast cancer. Some 530 women with hyperlipidaemia developed breast cancer.

The researchers found that having hyperlipidaemia increased the risk of breast cancer by 1.64 times.

“We found that women with high cholesterol had a significantly greater chance of developing breast cancer. This was an observational study so we can’t conclude that high cholesterol causes breast cancer but the strength of this association warrants further investigation,” Potluri said.

The research was presented on Friday at “Frontiers in CardioVascular Biology (FCVB) 2014” seminar in Barcelona, Spain.

Source: khaleej times

Eat garlic to lower your bad LDL cholesterol

garlic-to-lower-cholesterol

Are you looking for effective, natural ways to lower your cholesterol level? Here’s one – garlic. Garlic is an ingredient that you must be using in your daily food preparations. If not, it’s easily available and you don’t have to necessarily cook it to reap its benefits. In fact, raw garlic is more effective than when cooked.

The medicinal properties of garlic were explored thousands of years ago. But its cholesterol-lowering effect has been controversial with different studies showing conflicting results. Here’s some clinically significant evidence that supports the use of garlic to lower cholesterol.

A study conducted on participants with high cholesterol levels showed that garlic supplementation reduced the blood concentration of total cholesterol in them by 7%. The bad cholesterol or LDL cholesterol was reduced by 10% compared to participants taking a placebo. Another study by Ried K and colleagues reported a total reduction of serum total cholesterol by 17?±?6?mg/dL and LDL cholesterol by 9?±?6?mg/dL in participants having total cholesterol levels greater than 200?mg/dL who used garlic for more than 2 months. Now, this reduction is of clinical significance amounting for total 8% reduction in cholesterol which has been found to reduce the risk of heart disease by 38%.

Although researchers suggest that additional studies are needed to confirm the fact, you can still benefit a lot from garlic due to its vast store of sulphur compounds that act as antioxidants and prevent heart disease by scavenging free radicals causing damage to the arterial walls.

Source: the health site