Healthy Skepticism Library item: 2684

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Publication type: news

Low cholesterol linked to Parkinson’s in men
Reuters 2005 Sep 29
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/9533067/

Keywords:
cholesterol Parkinson's statins

Notes:

Ralph Faggotter’s Comments:
There has long been a suspicion that lowering cholesterol may affect the brain adversely.
We know that some people taking certain statins can experience global amnesia.
Cholesterol and its derivatives play important roles in normal metabolic processes.
Cardiologists are justifiably very fond on cholesterol lowering drugs, but perhaps we should be looking beyond just the heart, to the bigger picture.

Full text:

Low cholesterol linked to Parkinson’s in men
Study: Blood lipids may help rid body of toxins
associated with disorder
Reuters
Updated: 4:06 p.m. ET Sept. 29, 2005

NEW YORK – Is it possible to have too low a level of
cholesterol? A cholesterol profile that reduces the
risk of heart disease may increase the risk for
Parkinson’s disease — at least for men — researchers
report.

Going back several years, studies have uncovered
associations between low cholesterol and suicide,
stroke, depression, even violence. While the findings
in most cases did not stand up to scrutiny, the
suspicion remains that very low cholesterol might
influence mental function.

Now, at the annual meeting the American Neurological
Association held this week in San Diego, California,
Dr. Xuemei Huang described a possible link to
Parkinson’s disease.

Huang and colleagues, from the University of North
Carolina at Chapel Hill, measured the lipid levels of
124 Parkinson’s patients and a group of 112 similar
people free of Parkinson’s disease.

Huang reported that, after adjusting for age, smoking,
and use of lipid-lowering agents, men with low total
and LDL (“bad”) cholesterol levels had an increased
risk of Parkinson’s.

For example, compared to men with LDL cholesterol
levels higher than 135, those with levels between 91
and 135 were 6 times more likely to have Parkinson’s,
and those LDL levels below 91 were 4 time more likely.

Huang proposed several possible mechanisms to explain
the link between low cholesterol and risk of
Parkinson’s disease. One is that cholesterol helps rid
the body of environmental toxins that might trigger
Parkinson’s.

“Another possible mechanism underlying our finding is
the role of cholesterol as a precursor for
hormones/chemical modulators that are involved in
central nervous system function in a variety of ways,”
he said.

The association did not hold true for women. “Our
findings of the gender differences are
intriguing…the lifetime risk of Parkinson’s disease
is about two-fold higher in males than females,” Huang
noted.

“The fact that LDL cholesterol levels increase with
age in men until 65 years of age, and until 75 years
in women, may be relevant to our findings of
gender-specific association between cholesterol and
Parkinson’s disease,” he commented.

Expanding on this point, Huang concluded: “The fact
that cholesterol levels tend to increase with age in
young or middle age adults, yet decrease in later life
when the risk of Parkinson’s disease increases,
suggests caution in balancing the benefits and risks
of medication use in achieving ‘optimal’ cholesterol
levels.”
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© 2005 MSNBC.com