Study title and authors:
Total serum cholesterol level, violent criminal offences, suicidal behavior, mortality and the appearance of conduct disorder in Finnish male criminal offenders with antisocial personality disorder
Eila Repo-Tiihonen, Pirjo Halonen, Jari Tiihonen and Matti Virkkunen
Department of Forensic Psychiatry, University of Kuopio, Niuvanniemi Hospital, 70240 Kuopio, Finland
This study can be accessed at: http://www.springerlink.com/content/7cktb3d2haf4p15y/
Repo-Tiihonen comments that associations between low cholesterol levels and antisocial personality disorder (ASPD), violent and suicidal behavior have been found.
The study investigated the associations between cholesterol levels, violent and suicidal behavior, age of onset of the conduct disorder (CD) and the age of death among 250 Finnish male criminal offenders with ASPD.
It found that:
(a) The CD had begun before the age of 10 two times more often in non-violent criminal offenders who had lower than average cholesterol levels.
(b) The violent criminal offenders who had lower than average cholesterol levels were seven times more likely to die before the average age of death.
(c) The violent offenders who had lower than average cholesterol levels were eight times more likely to die of unnatural causes.
(d) The average cholesterol levels of these male offenders with ASPD was lower than that of the general Finnish male population.
(e) Low cholesterol levels are associated with childhood onset type of the CD.
(f) Low cholesterol levels are associated with premature and unnatural mortality among male offenders with ASPD.
(g) Low cholesterol levels seem to be a marker for boys with conduct disorder and antisocial male offenders
.The results of the study show that low cholesterol is associated with violent behaviour and an early death.
