HEALTHY DIETS AND SCIENCE: Cholesterol lowering medication is linked to higher depression rates

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

Sunday, 11 December 2011

Cholesterol lowering medication is linked to higher depression rates

This study was published in Psychopharmacology Bulletin 2003;37(4):92-8.

Study title and authors:
Cholesterol-lowering medication and relapse of depression.

Steffens DC, McQuoid DR, Krishnan KR.
Division of Geriatric Psychiatry, Duke University Medical Center, Durham, NC 27710, USA. steff001@mc.duke.edu

This study can be accessed at: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15131520

This study examined the effects of taking cholesterol-lowering medication on outcomes of depression among 167 older depressed adults over 6 years of duration.

The study found:
(a) Those taking cholesterol lowering medication were 21.8% more likely to relapse into depression compared to those not taking cholesterol lowering medication.
(b) Those taking cholesterol lowering medication relapsed more quickly into depression compared to those not taking cholesterol lowering medication.

This study shows that cholesterol lowering medication is linked to higher depression rates.