No association between low cholesterol and violent death

BMJ 1995;311:807 (23 September)

Letters

No association between low cholesterol and violent death

EDITOR,--The study by Massimo Gallerani and colleagues is thelatest to investigate whether there is an association betweenlow cholesterol concentration and violent events.¹ However,no causality has been shown, and the associations in differentstudies seem to be inconsistent. For example, in the Honoluluheart programme there was a direct relation: the higher thebaseline serum cholesterol concentration the higher the riskof suicide during 23 years' follow up.² Gallerani and colleaguesincorrectly cite the Helsinki businessmen study in the contextof cholesterol and violence³: the higher incidence of violentevents in the group treated multifactorially was not due tolow serum cholesterol concentration or cholesterol loweringdrugs.⁴ The results of the Scandinavian simvastatin survivalstudy are a strong argument against a true association betweencholesterol and violence: the study showed no difference inviolent deaths or deaths due to suicide between the placeboand simvastatin groups despite . . . [Full text of this article]

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