Low Cholesterol Does A Body Bad - Once More, with feeling

UPDATE: Women in Government have a new ad campaign to push you to get cholesterol testing. This same organization has been behind the Gardasil propaganda campaign. For women especially, it is very important to get proper thyroid testing, as an imbalance raises cholesterol. It is much more important to test for triglycerides as too high a level (>150) can greatly increase your risk of death more than any other indicator.

COQ10 (Ubiquinol) and CHF: CoQ10-H2™ Found to Be Better Absorbed in Heart Patients Idebenone is a less expensive supplement that may act like COQ10 and be effective for some people.

This new study, with a reasonable sample size, unlike most studies I review, raises concern over low cholesterol levels. As someone who has been a skeptic on the cholesterol drug mania for so very many years I am pleased to see this report in hopes that most people will stand up to the pressure of their health care provider when they get the statin drug "shuck and jive".

Lower Total Cholesterol Level Tied to Higher In-Hospital CHF Mortality
Dec 22 - In patients hospitalized with acute decompensated congestive heart failure, low total cholesterol levels independently predict a higher risk of in-hospital death, a report in the December issue of the American Heart Journal shows.

Using data from the Get With the Guidelines-Heart Failure registry, Dr. Tamara B. Horwich of the University of California at Los Angeles and colleagues studied 17,791 patients hospitalized with acute decompensated congestive heart failure at 236 participating hospitals.

Patients were divided into quartiles according to total cholesterol levels: Q1, 118 mg/dl or lower; Q2, 119-145 mg/dl; Q3, 146-179 mg/dl; and Q4, 180 mg/dl and higher.

Mean total cholesterol was 150 mg/dl. In-hospital mortality was 3.3% for patients in Q1, 2.5% for patients in Q2, 2.0% for patients in Q3 and 1.3% of patients in Q4.

After adjusting for multiple variables, Dr. Horwich and colleagues report that "each 10 mg/dl increase in total cholesterol was associated with a 4% decrease in risk of in-hospital mortality," with an odds ratio of 0.96.

The investigators found that 46% of patients were on lipid-lowering medications: 58% of patients in Q1, 50% of patients in Q2, 43% of patients in Q3, and 34% of patients in Q4.

Patients with lower total cholesterol levels were older and had a higher prevalence of ischemic heart disease. The findings were independent of left ventricular function, heart failure etiology, lipid-lowering therapy and other potentially confounding variables.

"Further investigation into potential pathophysiologic mechanisms behind the reverse epidemiology of cholesterol in heart failure, such as malnutrition and inflammation, deserves further study," the authors write.

Am Heart J 2008;156:1170-1176.