Cholesterol levels in major depression: A controlled study

It?s an interesting finding that nonvascular mortality increases due to suicide, accident and violent deaths in patients with lowered cholesterol. Patients with suicide attempts and suicidal ideation were reported to display lower cholesterol levels compared to normal controls. Researches studying cholesterol levels in depression are giving controversial results. Lower,similar and more rarely, higher cholesterol levels are reported compared to normal subjects. In this study we aimed at studying this much discussed issue and examined the two variables that are reported to change in major depression, namely total cholesterol and HDL levels. To test whether there is any change specific to depression, a control group comprised of schizophrenic patients are also included in the study. 39 major depressive, 38 healthy controls and 23 schizophrenic patients were compared. Cholesterol levels were found to be significantly lower in scizophrenic patients compared to major depressives. No statistically significant difference was observed between major depressive subjects and healthy controls in terms of serum total cholesterol levels. There was no significant difference between groups in terms of HDL. These results imply that there is no specific change of cholesterol and HDL in depression and they may not be regarded as biological markers in depression. Low levels of cholesterol may be due to age in schizophrenia group but it must be further studied.