Depression and Low Cholesterol Linked in Study

Older men with low cholesterol are three times as likely to show signs of depression than those with higher cholesterol, a study has found.

If the connection is confirmed, researchers said, cholesterol-lowering measures may be recommended only for people at high risk of heart disease.

The researchers, led by Lawrence Palinkas, associate adjunct professor in the Department of Community and Family Medicine at UC San Diego, said they did not know whether low cholesterol triggers depression or vice versa.

They did not try to determine precisely how low cholesterol might trigger depression in men over age 70, and they said they did not understand why the association was limited to older men.

But Palinkas speculated that low cholesterol may somehow reduce levels of serotonin, a brain chemical. Some experts believe that people with low levels of serotonin are prone to depression.

The study was published in today’s issue of The Lancet, a British medical journal.

Palinkas and his colleagues studied cholesterol levels in 1,020 men ages 50 to 89 and assessed symptoms of depression using a standard test called the Beck depression inventory.

A similar association did not emerge among men younger than age 70, or among 1,200 women who also were studied.