Cholesterol and Trigly. protect against stroke

[Guest guest]

I think that it is perhaps not entirely prudent to use total

cholesterol reduction and triglyceride reduction as metrics for the

determination of the exact degree of " protection " from disease under

intense dietary interventions such as caloric restriction.

It appears that cholesterol and triglycerides serve at least one

helpful function, the prevention of subarachnoid hemmorhages.

These kind of " bleeding out " strokes can also be produced in the

intraparenchymal vasculature, and this other lesion site has also

been associated with diminished cholesterol levels in some previous

research.

Additionally, other investigators have noted a relationship

between " intraparenchymal " hemorrhage and BMI.

All of this would lend credence to the idea that you need " some "

blood " fats " (triglycerides and cholesterol " , and that there is

a " healthy center " of a continuum. Of course, there are going to be

interesting interactions with hypertension and the aging process

itself, but the relationship between blood " fats " and hemorrhagic

stroke keeps showing up regardless.

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J Clin Neurosci. 2005 Jun 20; [Epub ahead of print] Related Articles,

Links

Serum lipids as protective factors for subarachnoid hemorrhage.

Tokuda Y, Stein GH.

Department of Medicine, Okinawa Chubu Hospital, Okinawa, Japan and

Harvard School of Public Health, Boston, USA.

Identification of common serum lipid profiles in patients with

subarachnoid hemorrhage (SAH) may allow a better understanding of its

pathogenesis. We conducted a hospital-based case-control study in

Japan. One hundred and fifty consecutive cases of spontaneous SAH

during a 5-year period were examined and their lipid profiles

assessed. Age- and gender-matched controls were identified for each

case through random hospital sampling. Median serum total cholesterol

was 161 mg/dl (range 77-288) in patients with SAH, and 209 mg/dl (134-

441) in controls (p<0.001). Median serum triglycerides were 95 mg/dl

(range 28-589) in SAH and 122 mg/dl (31-371) in controls (p<0.001). A

high serum total cholesterol of more than 5.20 mmol/L (200 mg/dl)

(odds ratio 0.22 [95% confidence interval 0.12-0.40]) and a high

serum triglyceride of more than 1.70 mmol/L (150 mg/dl) (odds ratio

0.29 [95% CI 0.14-0.60]) were independent protective factors for SAH.

In conclusion, higher values of both serum cholesterol and

triglyceride may be inversely associated with the occurrence of SAH.

PMID: 15975790 [PubMed - as supplied by publisher]

http://tinyurl.com/7o4gp

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Stroke. 2004 Jun;35(6):1360-4. Epub 2004 Apr 15.

" CONCLUSIONS: Hypercholesterolemia was associated with a lower risk

of ICH. We have not found an increased risk of ICH with the

widespread use of statins in our population. Given the lack of

cholesterol levels in the current study, further studies are needed

to determine if lower cholesterol levels secondary to statin use bear

the same risk as low cholesterol levels for ICH. " - PMID: 15087556

http://stroke.ahajournals.org/cgi/content/full/35/6/1360

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" CONCLUSIONS: For Japanese men and women, high BMI was associated

with increased risk of coronary heart disease, whereas low BMI was

associated with intraparenchymal hemorrhage. " - PMID: 15920029

http://stroke.ahajournals.org/cgi/content/full/36/7/1377

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T.

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