The Relationship Between PSA and Your Cholesterol Levels

Lowering your cholesterol and triglyceride levels is not just good for lowering your risk of heart disease, it may also help decrease your elevated prostate-specific antigen (PSA) levels. PSA is a marker commonly used to gauge prostate health and can be used to determine the possible presence of prostate cancer or other medical conditions involving the prostate.

The PSA level is usually elevated in people with prostate cancer, which makes it a useful screening test—but not a perfect one. PSA can also be elevated with benign prostatic hypertrophy, prostate inflammation, recent sexual activity, or even bicycle riding. In any case, a low PSA level is always the hoped-for result.

Cholesterol and PSA Levels

A few studies in men found that, after beginning statin therapy to lower LDL cholesterol levels, PSA levels decreased by between 4 and 40%. One study suggested that for every 10% decrease in cholesterol brought about by statins, PSA levels dropped by about 1.6 ng/mL.

This relationship appears to be most noted in White men, but not Black men. In White men, increased serum prostate serum antigen was associated with increased total cholesterol levels and LDL cholesterol levels. However, studies have not established a relationship between PSA and HDL cholesterol or triglyceride levels.

Can Lowering Your Cholesterol Levels Lower Your PSA Levels?

As of now, there isn’t enough evidence to establish a clear relationship or meaning between elevated PSA levels and high cholesterol levels. Although it appears that lowering high cholesterol levels may lower PSA levels, it is not currently known what type of effect this would have on the risk of prostate cancer or disease.

Additionally, it is not known if lowering your lipid levels lowers your risk of having one of these medical conditions or if the disease is present despite lowered PSA levels by cholesterol-lowering therapy.

The studies examining the relationship between cholesterol and PSA used a statin to lower cholesterol levels. Therefore, it may not be the relationship between cholesterol and PSA that warrants further investigation but the use of statins in prostate health.

Statins have unique properties besides lowering lipids that include reducing inflammation. Until further studies are conducted, it is not definitively known if elevated cholesterol levels also correspond with high PSA levels and what this relationship could mean.