HEALTHY DIETS AND SCIENCE: Low cholesterol leads to a 50% increased rate of digestive system deaths

The raison d'etre of this website is to provide you with hard scientific information which may help you make informed decisions in your quest for health (so far I have blogged concise summaries of over 1,500 scientific studies and have had three books published).

My research is mainly focused on the effects of cholesterol, saturated fat and statin drugs on health. If you know anyone who is worried about their cholesterol levels and heart disease, or has been told to take statin drugs you could send them a link to this website, and to my statin or cholesterol or heart disease books.

David Evans

Independent Health Researcher

Thursday 14 April 2011

Low cholesterol leads to a 50% increased rate of digestive system deaths

This post includes a synopsis of a study published in Circulation 1992;86;1026-1029

Study title and authors:
Health policy on blood cholesterol. Time to change directions
SB Hulley, JM Walsh and TB Newman
From the Division of Clinical Epidemiology (S.B.H., T.B.N.), Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics; General Internal Medicine Section (J.M.B.W.), Department of Medicine, Department of Veterans Affairs Medical Center; Division of General Pediatrics (T.B.N.), Department of Pediatrics, and Department of Laboratory Medicine (T.B.N.), School of Medicine, University of California San Francisco.

This paper can be accessed at: http://circ.ahajournals.org/cgi/reprint/86/3/1026

Hulley reviewed a study that included 68,406 deaths.

He found:
(a) men with cholesterol below 160 mg/dl had a 20% higher rate of cancer deaths compared with those with higher cholesterol levels.

(b) men with cholesterol below 160 mg/dl had a 40% higher rate of noncardiovascular, noncancer deaths compared with those with higher cholesterol levels.
(c) men with cholesterol below 160 mg/dl had a 35% increased rate of injury deaths compared with those with higher cholesterol levels.
(d) men with cholesterol below 160 mg/dl had a 15% increased rate of respiratory system deaths compared with those with higher cholesterol levels.

(e) men with cholesterol below 160 mg/dl had a 50% increased rate of digestive system deaths compared with those with higher cholesterol levels.
(f) Among women, the patterns of the association between low blood cholesterol and increased rates of various causes of noncardiovascular deaths were similar to those in men, except that the excess in cancer mortality was smaller (about 5%).
(g) There is no association between high blood cholesterol and cardiovascular deaths in women.

Hulley concluded that these findings: "Indicate the need for a change in direction for cholesterol policy... and indicates that we should draw back from universal screening and treatment of blood cholesterol".