Association between Increased Serum Cholesterol and Signs of Depressive Mood
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Maximilian Ledochowski
Abstract
Hypercholesterolemia is associated with an increased risk of atherosclerosis and coronary heart disease. Therefore, therapeutic lowering of cholesterol is an important preventive measure of cardiac morbidity and death. As one side effect, cholesterol-lowering drugs appear to increase the mortality due to suicides or violence, and low lipid concentrations were found to be associated with trait measures of depression. We compared serum cholesterol concentrations and the Beck Depression Rating Scale (Beck's score) in 604 otherwise healthy outpatients who visited the physician's office for a medical health check-up; 65.4% of individuals presented with serum cholesterol concentrations ≥5.2 mmol/l (>200 mg/dl) and 5.3% had elevated Beck's score (>19), indicative for depression. Beck's score was higher in patients with cholesterol concentrations above the 75th percentile (=6.2 mmol/l; U = 31221, p<0.02, Mann-Whitney U-test), and Beck's score correlated with cholesterol concentrations and with age. Thus, in contrast to the widely accepted view, in our study, higher cholesterol concentrations were associated with signs of depressive mood. Hypercholesterolemia may not necessarily increase the risk of depressive mood, conversely, increased intake of fat and carbohydrates by individuals with depressive mood may increase cholesterol levels.
Copyright © 2003 by Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co. KG
Articles in the same Issue
- Editorial
- Biomedical Applications of Capillary Electrophoresis
- Capillary Electrophoresis – A High Performance Analytical Separation Technique
- The Analysis of Carbohydrate-Deficient Transferrin, Marker of Chronic Alcoholism, Using Capillary Electrophoresis
- Capillary Electrophoresis of Hemoglobin
- Capillary Electrophoresis for the Determination of Organic Acidurias in Body Fluids: A Review
- Separation of Serum Proteins by Automated Capillary Zone Electrophoresis
- Is Capillary Electrophoresis a Method of Choice for Systematic Toxicological Analysis?
- Capillary Zone Electrophoresis of Serum Proteins: Effects of Changed Analytical Conditions
- Type-Specific Detection of Human Papillomaviruses in a Routine Laboratory Setting – Improved Sensitivity and Specificity of PCR and Sequence Analysis Compared to Direct Hybridisation
- Identification of Lipoproteins of Intestinal Origin in Human Atherosclerotic Plaque
- Molecular Cloning, Sequencing and Functional Expression of Porcine Thyrotropin (TSH) Receptor cDNA
- Are Results of Fibrinogen Measurements Transferable?
- Comparison of Several Point-of-Care Testing (POCT) Glucometers with an Established Laboratory Procedure for the Diagnosis of Type 2 Diabetes Using the Discordance Rate. A New Statistical Approach
- Association between Increased Serum Cholesterol and Signs of Depressive Mood
- Report from the Second European Symposium on Clinical Laboratory and in vitro Diagnostic Industry. Physiological Reference Values: A Shared Business? Barcelona, 67 February 2003
- Meetings and Awards
Articles in the same Issue
- Editorial
- Biomedical Applications of Capillary Electrophoresis
- Capillary Electrophoresis – A High Performance Analytical Separation Technique
- The Analysis of Carbohydrate-Deficient Transferrin, Marker of Chronic Alcoholism, Using Capillary Electrophoresis
- Capillary Electrophoresis of Hemoglobin
- Capillary Electrophoresis for the Determination of Organic Acidurias in Body Fluids: A Review
- Separation of Serum Proteins by Automated Capillary Zone Electrophoresis
- Is Capillary Electrophoresis a Method of Choice for Systematic Toxicological Analysis?
- Capillary Zone Electrophoresis of Serum Proteins: Effects of Changed Analytical Conditions
- Type-Specific Detection of Human Papillomaviruses in a Routine Laboratory Setting – Improved Sensitivity and Specificity of PCR and Sequence Analysis Compared to Direct Hybridisation
- Identification of Lipoproteins of Intestinal Origin in Human Atherosclerotic Plaque
- Molecular Cloning, Sequencing and Functional Expression of Porcine Thyrotropin (TSH) Receptor cDNA
- Are Results of Fibrinogen Measurements Transferable?
- Comparison of Several Point-of-Care Testing (POCT) Glucometers with an Established Laboratory Procedure for the Diagnosis of Type 2 Diabetes Using the Discordance Rate. A New Statistical Approach
- Association between Increased Serum Cholesterol and Signs of Depressive Mood
- Report from the Second European Symposium on Clinical Laboratory and in vitro Diagnostic Industry. Physiological Reference Values: A Shared Business? Barcelona, 67 February 2003
- Meetings and Awards
