All of us know that high levels of “bad” cholesterol, or LDL-C, put a person at risk for stroke and other cardiovascular problems. Now we have news, submitted by an alert student, that suggests that low levels of LDL-C might also cause problems, in this case by increasing a person’s chances of developing Parkinson’s disease. Xuemei Huang and her colleagues at the University of North Carolina published their findings in December 2006.
Reports of the Huang et al. study emphasize the need for critical thinking when reading popular press accounts of research studies, even though science writing has actually become rather good lately. The BBC headline for an article about the Huang et al. study reads “Do statin users risk Parkinson’s?” Statin drugs, such as the widely prescribed Lipitor, are used to lower levels of LDL-C. Still, a quick read of the Huang et al. abstract explicitly states that “use of either cholesterol-lowering drugs, or statins alone, was related to lower PD occurrence” and that “our data provide preliminary evidence that low LDL-C may be associated with higher occurrence of PD, and/or that statin use may lower PD occurrence, either of which finding warrants further investigation. ” Unfortunately, the headline may give the reader the impression that the study found that statin drugs are dangerous.
To further investigate the relationship between LDL-C and Parkinson’s, the UNC research group plans a prospective study of 16,000 individuals. In the meantime, these data are hardly grounds for running out and changing one’s prescriptions. My personal impression is that the amount we DON’T know about cholesterol is far greater than the amount we DO know. Hopefully, this additional research will help clarify the situation. In the meantime, I’m sticking with diet and exercise.
