Another excellent post from Michael Eades discusses a new study that found elderly people with lower cholesterol had faster cognitive decline than those with higher cholesterol. Suggesting that cholesterol protects your brain.
There are several reasons to think this association reflects cause and effect. First, earlier studies found the same thing. Second, an earlier study found that people whose cholesterol was lowered had higher rates of violent death — an unexpected side effect that implies brain dysfunction. Third, as Eades points out, the brain contains lots of cholesterol.
Thanks to Tom.
The suicide rate study was flawed. And I hope so. My cholesterol is measured in double digits. The same as many Chinese studied back in the 70′s and 80′s and in whom you could not find heart disease. See the book, “The China Study”.
That blog is fascinating…it’s some site in India that is aggregating by machine. There is clearly no human involved.
A. Way, there was a mistake in my post. It was violent deaths in general, not just suicides, that went up. Here is a description:
What was the flaw in the study?
I see one flaw: though low cholesterol, if it did indeed have the brain effects that are claimed, might influence accidents and homicide – in the sense of “he was asking for it” – it’s not clear that that is the case, and it’s highly doubtful that it could account for many of them. The theory that low cholesterol turns one into a murder victim seems a classic case of confusing correlation with causation. I would imagine that the sort of people who take statins don’t often get involved in violent street confrontations. Also note that the group had fewer heart attacks.
“The theory that low cholesterol turns one into a murder victim seems a classic cse of confusing correlation with causation.” The data are from experiments. They imply causation.