From: jmoulder@mis.mcw.edu
Newsgroups: rec.bicycles
Subject: Re: All that fat
Date: 17 Aug 92 16:29:12 GMT
Organization: Medical College of Wisconsin

> |> In article <1992Aug12.230545.24254@mnemosyne.cs.du.edu> canderso@nyx.UUCP (Chuck Anderson) writes:
> |> >I don't remember where I saw this (newspaper, I believe), but guess what?
> |> >They've found that people with low cholesterol (they mean LOW, like 160)
> |> >are as likely to die at a younger age as people with high cholesterol.
> |> >
> |> >
> |> >The list of causes was,... interesting.  It included suicide, homicide, and
> |> >then normal things, like cancer, etc.  How do you suppose low blood serum
> |> >cholesterol makes one more susceptible to homicide?
> |> >
> 
> Before this discussion gets out of hand, can somebody who's seen the report
> confirm or deny my recollection

What a radical request, you acturally want to see the data ;-)
This could be referring to any one of several studies.  See below for
some starting references.

> Wasn't the study done on people who had been given drug or dietary
> treatment to reduce their cholesterol levels?  Is this study in
> any way related to people with naturally low cholesterol levels?

The studies I am familiar with that link low cholestrol with increased death
rates are for people with naturally low cholesterol.  Clearly this a concern
for attempts to lower cholesterol levels in populations.

Frank JW et al:  Will lowering population levels of serum cholesterol affect
total mortality? Expectations from the Honolulu Heart Program.  J  Clini 
Epidem 45:333-46, 1992.
  Major campaigns now underway to reduce the serum cholesterol levels of
  entire national populations have not given serious consideration to the
  high rates of noncardiovascular disease and death associated with low
  cholesterol levels (less than 190 mg/dl). To explore this problem, the
  relationships between serum cholesterol levels, measured in 1965-1968 in
  7478 Japanese American men in Hawaii, and subsequent total and cause
  -specific mortality through 1985, were analyzed by multivariate Cox
  regression to control for potential confounders. Total mortality rates for
  1648 deaths showed a U-shaped curve by baseline cholesterol level, with
  significant inverse trends (p less than 0.03) for deaths due to
  hemorrhagic stroke, all cancer, benign liver disease, chronic obstructive
  lung disease and "unknown cause". Only the inverse trends for cancer and
  benign liver disease showed flattening when 227 deaths in the first 5
  years of follow-up were deleted from the analysis. Simulation models using
  three different strategies of cholesterol reduction in this cohort
  revealed that none of these approaches had any substantial impact on
  predicted total mortality over 15 years. However, the population-based
  approach might theoretically increase mortality for 60% of the cohort with
  baseline cholesterol levels less than 225 mg/dl.

Pekkanen J et al: Serum cholesterol and risk of accidental or violent death in
a 25-year follow-up. The Finnish cohorts of the Seven Countries Study.  Arch 
Int  Med 149:1589-91, 1989.
  In the two most recent cholesterol-lowering drug trials, the achieved
  reductions in coronary heart disease mortality were offset by increases in
  mortality due to accidents and violence. A possible biochemical
  explanation has been suggested for an association between low serum
  cholesterol level and increased risk of death due to injury. We,
  therefore, examined the association between serum cholesterol level and
  risk of death from accidents or violence in the 25-year follow-up of two
  cohorts of Finnish men (N = 1580). Although a statistically
  nonsignificant, negative association was observed in one cohort (hazard
  ratio, 0.84, with a 1 mmol/L increase in cholesterol), the other cohort
  showed a statistically significant, positive association in multivariate
  analysis (hazard ratio, 1.39). We conclude that the observed associations
  between serum cholesterol and deaths from injury in the present study and
  in cholesterol-lowering trials are probably determined by other, presently
  unknown factors, or by chance.

John Moulder (jmoulder@mis.mcw.edu)
Radiation Biology
Medical College of Wisconsin