testosterone. If blood cholesterol levels get low enough, could this starve the body of essential element and therefore jeopardise health? While 'raised' levels of cholesterol are associated with an increased risk of heart disease, lower levels of cholesterol are also associated with an increased risk of cancer as well as 'haemorrhagic stroke' (strokes caused by bleeding in the brain). These observations do not mean that low cholesterol causes cancer or stroke (neither do they mean that cholesterol causes heart disease either). In order to get a best overall picture of the relationship between any factor and health, it makes sense to assess its relationship with overall risk of death -- also known as overall mortality. Previous evidence has revealed that while higher cholesterol levels may be associated with increased overall mortality in younger individuals, this trend reverses as people age. The relevance of this is that most individuals die when they are advanced in years, and therefore the relationship cholesterol has with overall mortality in the elderly is, generally, much more relevant and important than this relationship in the young. A recent study illustrates this [1]. In it, researchers examined the relationship between overall mortality and individuals aged 60-85 (average age 71) over a period stretching 12 years. Initial analysis revealed that higher total cholesterol levels (&gt; 200 mg/dl/5.2 mmol/l) were associated with a 24 per cent reduced risk of mortality over the study period. And lower cholesterol levels (&lt; 170 mg/dl/4.4 mmol/l) were associated with a 60 per cent