Scandinavian study finds better onco outcomes for women on best-selling drug of all time. 

If you have been diagnosed with, or are at higher risk of getting, breast cancer, you might want to be on a cholesterol-lowering statin drug, according to a study posted on pre-print website bioRxiv. It probably also helps if you live in Scandinavia.

Led by Signe Borgquist, an oncologist at Lund University in Sweden, the study, which is yet to be peer reviewed, examined the fate of more than twenty thousand Swedish women diagnosed with breast cancer between 2005 and 2008. By 2012, 2669 were dead from causes linked to the cancer.

“In Sweden, around 20% of the adult female population is currently prescribed a statin,” the researchers say.

That figure was reflected in the study, with more than 2600 women taking statins before the cancer diagnosis and just over 4600 using the drug afterwards. Taking a statin, the researchers found, was protective.

Read the full article in Cosmos magazine here