CAN YOUR CHOLESTEROL BE TOO LOW?
Report #7202
A report in the medical journal, Preventive Medicine, shows that it's healthful to have a low cholesterol (1).
Young men with low blood cholesterol levels were the ones most likely to enjoy good health and live long lives. The only ones with low cholesterols who were likely to die early were those who smoked.
Previous studies have associated low blood cholesterol levels with liver cancer, lung disease, depression, alcoholism and suicide. The latest data shows that a low cholesterol may be associated with cancer, but does not cause it. Before a person develops the symptoms of cancer, he often loses interest in eating and loses weight, which causes his cholesterol to drop. The most famous study on the effects of cholesterol on health/ was done in Framingham, Massachusetts. Blood cholesterol levels were tested every two years. Researchers showed that cholesterols started to fall up to 8 years prior to a person dying of cancer, and that those with the greatest fall in cholesterol in a 4 years period were those who were most likely to develop cancer (2,3).
A study from Russia showed that men who have low blood cholesterol levels are more likely to drink, are much thinner and have far less education than men with normal or high cholesterol levels. Lacking formal education, drinking heavily and getting into accidents caused both the low cholesterol and the early deaths (4). Lung disease, alcoholism, certain types of cancers and many other illnesses suppress appetite, so people eat less, causing their blood cholesterol levels to drop significantly (5,6).
There is no evidence that a low blood cholesterol causes you to die early. If you have a low blood cholesterol level, your doctor could check you for a hidden cancer, addiction to alcohol, cigarettes or drugs, emotional disorder or other disease. If none is found, you should be delighted and usually can expect to live a long time. On the other hand, if your cholesterol is high, you should start to worry because you are at increased risk for a heart attack and certain types of cancers and should start immediately on a diet that is low in saturated fat, partially hydrogenated oils and refined carbohydrates; and high in vegetables, such as the DASH diet.
By Gabe Mirkin, M.D., for CBS Radio News
1) C Iribarren, DR Jacobs, ML Slattery, K Liu, S Sidney, BJ Hebert, JM Roseman.
Epidemiology of low total plasma cholesterol concentration among young adults: The CARDIA
study. Preventive Medicine 26: 4(JUL-AUG 1997):495-507. 2) SJ Sharp, SJ Pocock. Time trends in serum cholesterol before cancer death.
Epidemiology 8: 2 (MAR 1997):132-136. 3) M Zureik, D Courbon, P Ducimetiere. Decline in serum total cholesterol and the risk
of death from cancer. Epidemiology 8: 2 (MAR 1997):137-143. 4) DB Shestov, AD Deev, AN Klimov, CE Davis, HA Tyroler. Circulation.
1993(Sept);88:3:846-853. 5) Circulation September, 1992. 6) Archives of Internal Medicine July, 1992.
Reported 9/1/97; Checked 9/5/05