Bad LDL cholesterol may benefit elderly

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" Bad " LDL cholesterol may benefit elderly

Reuters Health Information

Wednesday, January 4, 2006

NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - LDL cholesterol is known as the " bad "

cholesterol, because high levels are linked to heart disease, but low

levels may not be good for the elderly.

A new study of older men and women shows that higher LDL cholesterol

levels are associated with decreasing mortality risk in women. For

both men and women, the risk of fatal heart failure decreases with

higher LDL cholesterol levels.

The findings " add to the uncertainty of the role of elevated levels of

LDL cholesterol as a risk factor for mortality in old people, "

according to the researchers who conducted the study.

Dr. Tikhonoff of the University of Padua, Italy, and

colleagues conducted a population-based study of 3120 subjects age 65

years or older, who were followed for up to 12 years.

Tikhonoff''s group reports in the Journal of the American Geriatric

Society that the likelihood of dying during the follow-up period " was

curvilinear ... decreasing nonlinearly with LDL cholesterol. "

The total mortality risk in relation to LDL level was J-shaped in men,

meaning that the risk increased as LDL cholesterol levels fell below a

mid range -- although the risk increased with high levels of LDL.

Similarly, there was a J-shaped relationship to the risk of dying from

cardiovascular causes for both sexes, and for the risk of having a

fatal heart attack among men.

" The key finding of this study was that, in older subjects with a low

use of lipid-lowering drugs representative of the general Italian

population, serum LDL cholesterol behaved as a multifaceted and

predominantly nonlinear predictor of cardiovascular and all-cause

mortality, " Tikhonoff and colleagues conclude.

They add that results of lipid-lowering drug trials should be

interpreted with caution in unselected elderly patients, because these

findings contradict the usual association of high LDL cholesterol with

mortality risk seen in younger patients.

SOURCE: Journal of the American Geriatric Society, December 2005.

URL of this page:

http://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/news/fullstory_28974.html

(*this news item will not be available after 02/03/2006)