Skip to content
Medical News Outlet Logos With Caption Can We Trust Them

Medscape Misleading Doctors About Statin Benefits for Breast Cancer

Statin drugs can’t fight cancer. But Medscape wants your doctor to think they can.

Statins lower cholesterol. They are typically prescribed to prevent heart attacks. (And they don’t do that well, as shown here.) But drug companies are also trying to market them for cancer prevention. They just might pull it off, with help from medical news outlets like Medscape. Let me show you how.

Medscape is a popular website for medical doctors to stay up to date. Unfortunately, in the same way that the 60 Minutes story about Ozempic was basically an advertisement, Medscape also takes advantage of its audience to do a little marketing for drug companies. It’s a lot sneakier than 60 Minutes, though, because most doctors are tragically naive. Too few of my colleagues seem to consider the implications of the fact that, just like any other news outlet, Medscape needs to butter its bread with drug company money, too.

If you’re a health professional, you should know that these outlets don’t just take drug company money. They also pull some underhanded tricks. So I want to show you one of the sneaky strategies they use to support the drug industry. I’ve seen this particular strategy more than once–and it’s terrifyingly effective. 

This article is continued below...(scroll down)
Kobe Bryant

It helped. I feel great.

"It’s helped. I feel great."

Kobe Bryant
NBA baskeball player
megyn kelly

This has been life changing

"Let me tell you this has been life-changing. I have all of her books, in audible and ebooks! I have gotten rid of all the hateful 8 oils. I have trained my body to eat its own previously toxic body fat. Download that pod it's a game changer!"

Megyn Kelly
Jesse Watters

Life changing

Deep Nutrition changed my life.

Jesse Watters
Fox News Primetime host

Saved my life

I would like to thank you for literally saving my life. Back in February, I had to be hospitalized while on vacation in Phoenix with an A1C of 11% and had to start taking 2 types of insulin and 2 other meds. I read the Fatburn Fix in April, and followed the program to a tee, and I’m down by 15 pounds, 6.8 A1C, and only one once weekly diabetes medicine. Prior to reading the book, it was almost impossible for me to lose weight as a diabetic. 

Leontyne Tompkins

I feel free

For the last month, I have really been reading all labels on everything. I have completely remove those 8 oils you talk about. I must tell you, I feel great! I have more energy and I am now 197 lbs (have always been around 205 to 210lbs). I eat potatoes with real butter, grass fed steak, pasta with the right toppings. I eat everything! I seem to crave less sugar. I love it! 

Robert Kirkendall

I feel so much better

I had terrible aches and pains everywhere in my body, my hands, shoulders and knees. I feel so much better and the way I feel is motivating me every day! Thank you

Mike Deb Wootan Burcin

Better than ever

I am an anesthesiologist in Orlando and a huge fan of both of your books! I have been incorporating your principles for the last 10 months and feel that my health is better than ever.

Marnie Robinson, MD

My allergies disappeared

The biggest difference for me (and a surprising one) is that my allergies have almost completely disappeared! This is a big deal for me, because I’ve had allergies most of my life and they have often affected what I do which is a teaching music in [a public school district].  In general, I feel much better and have more consistent energy throughout the day.

Erica Turrell

Heart Palpitations have Stopped

I’ve lost 20+ pounds (also fasting 16-24 hours daily) and haven’t had palpitations except for one occasion — I had a mini bag of Fritos for the first time in July. And, I feel better now on a daily basis than I ever did all through college.

Mike Wright
Deep Nutrition and Fatburn Fix reader
Mitzi Wilkinson Champion

I’ve lost over 50 pounds

I’ve lost over 50 pounds. I’m 56 years old. Cutting processed food and unhealthy fats from my diet was one of the first things I did on my health recovery journey...I went cold turkey off the bad oils. Emptied my pantry into the trash and just started eating real food

Mitzi Wilkinson Champion

Knowledge I didn’t know I needed

Your Fatburn Fix book is amazing, my friend. Thank you! I’m an Functional Nutritional Therapy Practitioner and I know my stuff. This is the extra layer of knowledge I didn’t know I needed. Well done!

Jennifer Dillman
Fatburn Fix reader

Lost a solid 20 lbs and my bloodwork is great

I have lost a solid 20 lbs and my bloodwork (after 3 months of eating your way) was even better! I was metabolically healthy (per your book) before I read your book, but barely. Lowering my weight, sealed the deal! I have been talking about you and your book to anyone who will listen...Thank you for all you’ve done and what you continue to do! You are changing lives for the better!

Missy Cramer
FatBurn Fix reader

Lost 20 lbs I could never shed

I love your Fatburn Fix!  Has helped me so so much!  I have had the dreaded weight all my life - 20 or so pounds I could never shed.  I have lost that now. I only eat 2 meals a day lunch and dinner with a glass of milk or cappuccino around 4 to hold me over. No snacking and not bad oils.  It has been the key to unlocking my fatburn.  I work out in the am and believe I am burning fat for energy not from food!

Lauren Smith

I feel great

My waist is four inches smaller. I feel great and many of the minor aches and pains that I had (knees and lower back) are gone. Also, my muscle tone is amazing, even though I have not increased my workout routine.

Richard Janelle
Completed Dr Cate's online course
Kent Matthes

The go-to for strength and conditioning coaches

Whenever I advise my clients about eating to perform I go straight to what I have learned from Dr. Cate. Her book Deep Nutrition has become the go-to for strength and conditioning coaches across the country.

Kent Matthes
Major League Baseball Agent with WME Sports
Ken D Berry

Dismantles the lie

Dr. Cate dismantles the lie that seed oils are healthy, which may the biggest lie about nutrition and health because it’s so insidious.  

Ken D Berry, MD
Author of Lies My Doctor Told Me
Dr. Drew Pinsky

She knows the chemistry

Dr. Cate alerts us to the harms of seed oils and she’s convincing because she knows the chemistry better than anyone.

Dr. Drew Pinskey, MD
Globally recognized internal medicine and addiction medicine specialist, media personality, LoveLine Host, and New York Times bestselling author
Kelly Starrett

No one is better at communicating nutritional truth

Dr. Cate has had the single greatest impact on how we talk to people about fueling for both performance or durability. While we all are a little unique, the foundational principles of human nutrition are immutable. If you are looking to create a more durable, resilient body, no one is better at communicating nutritional truth than Dr. Cate.

Dr. Kelly Starrett
Physiotherapist coach and New York Times and Wall Street Journal bestselling author
Brian Lenkzes

Highly recommend The Fatburn Fix

Dr. Shanahan has had a significant impact on my practice of medicine. I am known as a Low Carb Doctor, but I never really appreciated the negative effects of processed seed oils on the health of my patients. I highly recommend The Fatburn Fix to my patients and have a loaner copy in my waiting room. It is amazing how quickly blood sugars and overall health improves with cutting seed oils. It is not just about the carbs!

Dr. Brian Lenkzes, MD
CEO of LowCarbMD San Diego, co-host of Low Carb MD Podcast and host of Life's Best Medicine Podcast
Chris Kaman

Respected in the sports world

Dr. Cate reordered my diet when I was with the L.A. Lakers, and the benefits, for me personally, were felt immediately and have served me to this day. I’ve come to take real food so seriously I started a small family farm. I know of no M.D./nutritionist more respected in the sports world than Dr. Cate Shanahan.

Chris Kaman
NBA Player
Mark Sisson

Brought seed oil issue front and center

Cate brought the seed oil issue front and center. Healthy fats matter. So much so that I created an entire product line to swap out bad fats with good.

Mark Sisson
Founding Father of the Primal/Paleo Movement
Dallas Hartwig

Optimal health starts with food

If you want to understand how optimal health starts with food, start with Dr. Cate. Her book Deep Nutrition leaves you with an appreciation of the profound relationship between our genes and the planet, inspiring us to be good shepherds of both.

Dallas Hartwig
Attribution author of The Whole 30
Dwight Howard

Helped me with endurance

Deep Nutrition really helped me with endurance. I started to feel better as a player. I was able to run more, I was able to be more active …and I just decided to keep going with it to this day.

Dwight Howard
NBA Player
Paul Grewal

Silver bullet for me

Dr Cate’s teachings helped me lose 60 pounds like it was nothing. It was like a silver bullet for me.

Paul Grewal, MD 
Dr Grewal Internal Medicine, MD, author of Genius Foods
Joesph Mercola

Radically improve your health…

Dr. Shanahan has provided a solid reference that deserves a place in the library of anyone who is seriously interested in nutrition. Her perspective on the vital role that healthy fat has in our diet is novel and, if implemented, can radically improve your health.

Dr. Joseph Mercola
Author of Fat for Fuel and Founder of Mercola.com
Dave Aspery

Pull up a chair…

I have based my work on the idea that getting the right kinds of healthy fats into your body and avoiding the worst fats is essential to optimal health. I've interviewed dozens of the world's top experts about this, and I know of no one who speaks more eloquently on this topic than Dr Cate. If she’s talking fats, pull up a chair. Take notes.

Dave Asprey
Author of the Bulletproof Diet

The key to unlocking my fatburn

I love your Fatburn Fix!  Has helped me so so much!  I have had the dreaded weight all my life - 20 or so pounds I could never shed.  I have lost that now. I only eat 2 meals a day lunch and dinner with a glass of milk or cappuccino around 4 to hold me over. No snacking and not bad oils.  It has been the key to unlocking my fatburn.  

Lauren Smith

Saved my life

I would like to thank you for literally saving my life. Back in February, I had to be hospitalized while on vacation in Phoenix with an A1C of 11% and had to start taking 2 types of insulin and 2 other meds. I read the Fatburn Fix in April, and followed the program to a tee, and I’m down by 15 pounds, 6.8 A1C, and only one once weekly diabetes medicine. 

Leontyne Tompkins

> Tears of joy

 I'm crying tears of joy and appreciation for all you've done for me and my health! Without Deep Nutrition and Fatburn Fix, I would literally still be in the vicious cycle I'd been fighting all my life! In a nutshell - I am no longer a compulsive overeating addict suffering under the crushing 'thumb' of all food and alcohol.     

Penni Wicks

 

If you’re not a health professional, I want you to appreciate just how hard it can be for your doctor to learn the truth about drugs. Particularly statins.

How to create fake statin cancer benefits in two easy steps.

Step one. A respectable peer-reviewed journal publishes some research involving statins and women with breast cancer. In this case, the journal in question is called The Journal of Clinical Oncology. The article fails to publish its data in a clear, easy-to-understand format that a non-statistician could understand. (This is not required but should be.) Because the data is effectively unintelligible, they can make exaggerated claims about the results. (I’ll show you the details below.)

Step two, a news outlet like Medscape cites the original research but makes a patently false claim about the study. In this case, the claim is that the study randomized the women with breast cancer to take a statin or not. But once you’ve read their news article, even if you click on the link to read the study, it’s almost impossible to recognize the statin-randomization lie.

Why is it so hard to see the lie? Because of psychology.

It turns out that once an idea is placed in our minds, we’ll be inclined to see new information within the paradigm of that original idea. It’s a mental shortcut, of sorts. So once we get it into our heads that a certain study shows a certain thing, we may read that original idea into the study even when the study itself says no such thing.

Let’s get into this latest misleading statin cancer article.

Here’s what Medscape wants doctors to believe. It’s also the title of the article. (And you can read it here.)

“Statin Use May Extend Life for Breast Cancer Patients” 

Medscape gives us this FALSE summary of the study in question:

Data from a randomized trial published in the Journal of Clinical Oncology in 2017 showed significantly improved disease-free survival, breast cancer-free interval, and distant recurrence-free interval in early-stage breast cancer patients randomized to cholesterol-lowering medication vs. those who did not receive cholesterol-lowering medication.”

As you can see, the sentence claims that patients were randomized to either take a cholesterol-lowering medication or not. This implies women got statins even if they had low cholesterol. It implies that whether their cholesterol was low or high, the statin helped. Doctors likely come away believing that if a woman has a history of breast cancer, we should consider telling her to take a statin no matter what her cholesterol and heart attack risk may be.

One in seven women will be diagnosed with breast cancer in our lifetimes. So this is a very large new group of potential statin users.

The randomization lie.

The Medscape article suggests that women were randomized to take either a statin or no statin. In reality, they were randomized to different hormonal treatments for their cancer. They were not randomized to take statins. The study wasn’t even centered on cholesterol medications. It was mainly about which of three available hormone treatments prevented breast cancer reoccurrence more effectively. As a secondary subject, it also evaluated women who were treated for high cholesterol with any medication, including statins.

(NOTE: Cholesterol does not really cause heart disease, and “high” cholesterol should be called “normal cholesterol” because having cholesterol in our bloodstream is not a disease.)

To be clear, only women with high cholesterol got medications. The women were not randomized to statin or no statin. They were simply given a prescription to take any old drug for their high cholesterol. And there’s no analysis as to whether or not they filled the prescription or took statins or some other drug.

Still, I almost didn’t notice the randomization switcharoo. The Medscape article had placed the statin-no-statin randomization idea in my mind and that affected how I thought about the article. When I started reading the study I fully believed that, as Medscape claimed, patients were randomized to cholesterol drugs or no cholesterol drugs. Even after reading the article I still didn’t notice the misrepresentation.

Only when I started to write about the study results to try to explain what I thought was really going on with high cholesterol and cancer did I realize Hey wait a second here. A closer read made it clear that the Medscape article says one thing and the actual article says another.

The original article also makes misleading statements about cholesterol-lowering drugs like statins.

This ruse would not work so well if the original article Medscape claims to be summarizing presented their results honestly and in an easy-to-read format. But they don’t.

The original article makes this misleading statement about the effects of taking a statin or other cholesterol-lowering medication (CLM):  “In the BIG 1-98 trial, initiation of CLM while receiving adjuvant endocrine therapy improved clinical outcome for patients with ER-positive breast cancer.”

The deception in that phrase is “improved clinical outcomes.” Since the trial was not randomized, they can’t make a causative connection like that. They needed to have said “was associated with improved clinical outcome….” This slight wording alteration might seem like no big deal. But in the world of peer review science, it is. This should not have passed the peer review process.

Why did it?

Probably because just like Medscape editors know who butters their bread, so do the editors of peer-reviewed medical journals.

Exactly what are those “improved clinical outcomes?”

It’s hard to tell. It was very hard for me to wade through all the jargon. That, too, is likely intentional because it means we are likely to assume we’re just too dumb to understand the numbers presented and just blip over them to get to that misleading summary. There, we read the badly worded claim that “initiation of CLM while receiving adjuvant endocrine therapy improved clinical outcome.”

Whenever the outcomes are presented in a muddy way, chances are it’s intentional. Somebody wants to obscure the truth.

In this case, I think they’re trying to hide the magnitude of this “improved” clinical outcome.  More likely than not, the supposed benefits of cholesterol medications were so small they would not be clinically meaningful. Perhaps they delayed recurrence by a day, for example. If they were meaningful, then the authors would have explicitly stated this important information.

They muddied the results with jargon.

For your amusement, here’s the language from the results section that we’re supposed to be able to interpret.

According to marginal structural Cox models, initiation of CLM during any endocrine therapy appeared to be associated with improved DFS (HRadj, 0.79; 95% CI, 0.66 to 0.95; P = .01), BCFI (HRadj, 0.76; 95% CI, 0.60 to 0.97; P = .02), and DRFI (HRadj, 0.74; 95% CI, 0.56 to 0.97; P = .03; Table 4). 

(DFS, BCFI, and DRFI stand for Disease-Free Survival, Breast Cancer Free Interval, and Distant Recurrence Free Interval. )

The DFS HR of .79 means that adding cholesterol-lowering drugs to endocrine therapy reduced the risk of recurrence by 21% compared to whatever the rate was in the group that didn’t get cholesterol meds. The CI numbers being under 1.00 mean that the effect is likely nonrandom.

The BCFI HR of .76 likewise means that adding cholesterol-lowering drugs to endocrine therapy reduced the risk of recurrence by 24% compared to whatever the rate was in the group that didn’t get cholesterol meds. The CI numbers being under 1.00 mean that the effect is also likely nonrandom.

The DRFI HR of .74 means that adding cholesterol-lowering drugs to endocrine therapy reduced the risk of recurrence by 26% compared to whatever the rate was in the group that didn’t get cholesterol meds. Again, the CI numbers being under 1.00 mean that this effect (of unclear magnitude) is likely nonrandom.

And there’s more…

When you crunch the data a different way, there is NO benefit to taking cholesterol drugs. 

In analyses of the two monotherapy arms, initiation of CLM showed no benefit on clinical outcome in the tamoxifen arm DFS (HRadj, 0.99; 95% CI, 0.56 to 1.74; P = .97), BCFI (HRadj, 0.85; 95% CI, 0.42 to 1.74; P = .44), and DRFI (HRadj, 0.57; 95% CI, 0.24 to 1.35; P = .20), and a nonsignificant trend toward a benefit among patients in the letrozole arm DFS (HRadj, 0.66; 95% CI, 0.40 to 1.08; P = .10), BCFI (HRadj, 0.77; 95% CI, 0.40 to 1.48; P = .44), and DRFI (HRadj, 0.70; 95% CI, 0.31 to 1.59; P = 0.40; Data Supplement).

Kind of a mess, right? Well yeah. And most doctors won’t have the time or inclination to sift through all that mumbo jumbo.

Medscape to the rescue!

That’s how they get away with lying.

But wait, I’m not done trashing this article yet…

As I stated at the beginning of this article, statins don’t prevent cancer. If anything, they are likely to increase cancer risk. So this article also provides a great example of how the lie that cholesterol can be bad for our health helps foment another lie. Namely, that lowering cholesterol might prevent cancer. (Chapter five of Dark Calories is called The Truth about Cholesterol because the truth is cholesterol is a nutrient but most doctors believe it is toxic.)

Women with high cholesterol had less cancer recurrence.

In the study, women with low or normal cholesterol did not get statins. They did not do as well, either. On the other hand, women with high cholesterol did get statins. And they did better. (Although in truth it was probably only a very tiny bit better.) The article’s authors want us to believe that improvement was due to the drugs they took. But there’s a confounding variable they don’t mention. Women who got the drug also had higher cholesterol. Was it the drug that helped them? Or was it the fact that they had high cholesterol?

This is a really important confounding variable, given the concerning evidence suggesting that low cholesterol increases the risk of all sorts of cancers.  Indeed, a statin trial done back in 1996 showed “An alarming increase in breast cancer incidence, some of which were recurrences…in women randomized to pravastatin.” Ever since that study, people with cancer have been excluded from major trials testing statins! (For example, the Jupiter trial) That strongly suggests to me that drug companies believe people who have cancer should stay away from cholesterol-lowering drugs.

Remember, statins disrupt many cell functions, including immune system function. And immune surveillance helps keep cancer cells in check. In other words, it seems that women with higher cholesterol did better in spite of the statin, not because of it.

Here’s what I think really explains any findings of any benefit from cholesterol-lowering drugs on cancer. 

The real story here is that people with higher cholesterol have better outcomes than people with lower cholesterol!

In other words, if women on cholesterol drugs did indeed survive significantly longer (and that’s an open question), it was in spite of the statin, not because of it. 

More coverage that helps mislead doctors.

This article is one of many that promotes the dubious statin-cancer benefit.

The MD Anderson Cancer newsroom reports on this study here https://www.mdanderson.org/newsroom/statins-may-improve-survival-for-triple-negative-breast-cancer-patients.h00-159462423.html

Another news outlet reports another study here, hypothesizing that by lowering cholesterol you also lower cellular estrogen production without producing good evidence to support that idea other than suggesting estrogen is a carcinogen, which is patently absurd. https://www.news-medical.net/news/20231121/Statins-may-reduce-breast-cancer-mortality-rates.aspx

2008 article pushing statins for breast cancer prevention https://www.health.harvard.edu/heart-health/the-status-of-statins

How to arm yourself against this stream of misinformation.

Whether you’re a health professional or not, you have been and will continue to be bombarded by misinformation about drugs, supplements, and quick fixes for cancer–and everything else. It can feel overwhelming, especially since the claims are often contradictory. Who benefits when you’re confused? The sick care industry and the people selling supplements and other quick fixes.

My work has convinced me that cancer, heart disease, and all other metabolic diseases are mainly due to oxidative stress. I’m also convinced that our unhealthy, vegetable oil and processed ingredient diet promote oxidative stress. Drugs can’t help our bodies recover from metabolic diseases. But a healthy diet can. And one key to enjoying a healthy diet is coming to understand that cholesterol is a nutrient, not a toxin.

I cover that subject in many articles and especially in my latest book Dark Calories, in Chapter 5, called The Truth About Cholesterol.

The truth will set you free. But first, it will piss you off.

 

With over two decades of clinical experience and expertise in genetic and biochemical research, Dr. Cate can help you to reverse metabolic disease and reshape your body.

Please note: Please do not share personal medical information in a comment on our posts. It will be deleted due to HIPAA regulations.

This Post Has 11 Comments

  1. one real life example from germany:

    there is this guy who has his private channel and talks about nutrition. he wonders why wine lowers blood sugar at night, says nobody know. i drop him an email because i know. wierd email adresses.

    I watch this thing about salt. posts countless studies about salt, huge lancet thing, very hard to comprehend, huge wall of text.

    then it dawns on me: its a paid guy. he is paid by the bertelsmann stiftung, but is his audience best chum. has real informations, with bad information intermixed. so he says stop drinking wine, but is shady about bllod sugar.

    has a cookbook, its from bertelsmann. says he is in his private home, talks about son and wife and blabla.

    i wrote a comment that i saw the berstelsmann thing at night, like early morning 3 o clock. comment deleted instantly.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8-rjRjzC36Y salt video
    one of his emailadresses is the press pr email adress of bertelsmann.

    i dont know about you, but i believe that that miming a private person while you are a spokesperson for a huge buisness agglomeration is kinda unethical.

    and if there is one guy like that, there has to be hundreds.

  2. Hello, I appreciate the work you do and shared this article within our community and on my podcast. However, one of our members, a former medical writer, shared a mistake within the article. And I wanted to share it with you, so you can review and make any necessary corrections.
    You report that DFS and BCFI are two different hormonal drugs used to treat cancer. But if you review the link for table 4 from the research study, it’s reported that the initials DFS and BCFI represent the terms disease free survival and breast cancer free interval, not drug names.
    I hope that you’ll take the time to review this and correct this in your article.
    Thanks so much.

  3. You say: (DFS and BCFI are two different hormonal drugs used to treat breast cancer. )

    They are not. DFS is disease-free survival and BCFI is breast cancer-free interval, both clinical measures to assess effectiveness of the cancer treatments.

    I agree with you, though, on many of your conclusions about cholesterol and statins.

  4. Fascinating. Just today my husband was told that his dr. was prescribing statins for him due to a marginal increase in his A1C, putting him in the low range considered prediabetic. The dr. explained the statin script was due to the “fact” that DIABETICS (not prediabetics) have an increased risk of heart disease. No way doc! Must be that big pharma isn’t making enough money yet.

  5. Dear Dr. Cate,
    Thank you so much for all your work. You are brave and honest. A bright shining candle in our very dark times.
    Sincerely,
    DianDiehl

  6. Thank you Dr. Cate. Over the past 15 years, since I’ve gotten sick, I’ve learned to ignore mainstream conventional research. Unfortunately I’ve been unable to heal my thyroid from early Mercury and Lead poisoning so I need medication, otherwise I would largely be pharmaceutical drug-free. Our medical-industrial complex is rotten to the core. Determined to opt-out and steer clear for the rest of my life.

  7. Huge shout for Dr Cate for having the cajones to call out and expose the multitude upon multitude of lies perpetrated by those that have no conscience in taking in enormous profits from the sick and diseased around the world in which they themselves have caused these diseases , ie big pharma , big ag/food , doctors , corrupt politicians taking payoffs to help keep the lies going like dt and jb one way or the other these groups are banking huge amounts of money making people sick and terribly unhealthy .

    Talk about crimes against humanity ? This is it folks wake up take control of your own health , politicians and doctors are pimped out by big pharma and big ag/food. Trust none of them

    Thanks again Dr Cate and keep up the great work
    We the people need this life saving knowledge.

Note: Please do not share personal information with a medical question in our comment section. Comments containing this content will be deleted due to HIPAA regulations.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Back To Top
Search