Colesterol y suicidio: Estudio en pacientes ingresados en el periodo de un año en unidad de agudos de hospital.

Introduction and antecedents: Suicide among the Spanish population has increased over the last few years. Among the factors which account for the increase in attempted suicide is hypercholesterolemia. Objectives: First, to establish the relation between serum concentrations of the different components of the lipoid profile and the attempted suicide. Second, to seek confirmation or discrepancies in the results of other studies in this area, both within Spain and abroad. Material and methods: N:48 patients were studied who were admitted in the period of one year in the acute unit from June 2010 to June 2011. The patients were assigned to the experimental group and the control group depending on whether or not the admission was caused by a suicide attempt or another cause. Socio-demographic, clinical, lipoid profile and suicidal intentionality scale data were recorded. These were analysed by average comparison and Pearson chi scale correlation. Results: For confidence level 90 significant differences in the levels of cholesterol in both groups are recorded (T=1.39). The hypercholesterolemia and hypertrigliciridemia correlated with suicide attempt at a confidence level of 95 (X2=4,36 and 4,36). The experimental group differed in profile since it was constituted principally by women (62%), female workers (79%), females suffering from depression (50%), and females mainly living alone (20%). At inferior confidence levels (50 and 80) suicide attempt correlated with below normal figures of HDL and LDL (X2:0,5 and 0,5). Discussion and conclusion: The total cholesterol levels are different in both groups (at confidence level 90 T=1,39), but by contrast with other studies consulted, suicide coincided with high, not low levels of total cholesterol (X2=4,36) (De Berardis and Vuksan-Cusa) and with high levels of triglycerides (X2=4,36). The study corroborates other studies with low levels of HDL and LDL coincidental with suicidal attempt, albeit at low levels of confidence 50 and 80 (X2=0,5) (Deisenhammer and Zhang).