HEALTHY DIETS AND SCIENCE: Low cholesterol is associated with major depressive disorder and death from suicide

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

Saturday 25 August 2012

Low cholesterol is associated with major depressive disorder and death from suicide

This study was published in the British Journal of Psychiaty 1999 Sep;175:259-62

Study title and authors:

Association of low serum total cholesterol with major depression and suicide.

Partonen T, Haukka J, Virtamo J, Taylor PR, Lönnqvist J.

Department of Mental Health and Alcohol Research, National Public Health Institute, Helsinki, Finland. timo.partonen@ktl.fi

This study can be accessed at: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/10645328

The aim of the study was to investigate the association between total cholesterol levels, depression and suicide. The study included 29,133 men aged 50-69 years who were followed up for 5-8 years.

The study found low total cholesterol levels were associated with low mood and subsequently a heightened risk of hospital treatment due to major depressive disorder and of death from suicide.