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 17 May 2012

Low cholesterol levels are associated with lung disease

This study was published in Circulation 2003 Mar 25;107(11):1514-9

Study title and authors:
Why are patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease at increased risk of cardiovascular diseases? The potential role of systemic inflammation in chronic obstructive pulmonary disease.
Sin DD, Man SF.

This study can be accessed at: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/12654609

This study analysed the association of cholesterol levels with the severity of airflow obstruction in people with chronic obstructive pulmonary (lung) disease. The study included 6,629 people aged 50 or over.

Sin notes that air flow obstructions elevate the risk of ischemic heart diseases, strokes, and sudden cardiac deaths 2- to 3-fold.

The study found:
(a) People with no air flow obstruction had the highest cholesterol.
(b) People with the most severe air flow obstruction had the lowest cholesterol.

The results of the study show that low cholesterol is associated with a higher severity of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease which leads to a  2- to 3-fold increased risk of ischemic heart disease, stroke, and sudden cardiac death.