High cholesterol tied to better brain health in those over 85: study
NEW YORK: In a seemingly counter-intuitive finding, new research suggests that high cholesterol is associated with a reduced risk of mental decline in the elderly.
People aged 85 to 94 with good brain function whose cholesterol was above normal had a 32% lower risk for mental decline over the next 10 years compared with people aged 75 to 84, who had a 50% higher risk of developing dementia, researchers found.
“It’s not cholesterol suddenly becomes good for you if you can make it to 85,” said lead researcher Jeremy Silverman, professor of psychiatry at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai in New York.
“People who are making it who remain alive and who have high cholesterol are more likely to carry other factors that protect them against the bad effects of cholesterol.”
Silverman cautioned that these findings don’t mean that if you’re 85 you should increase your cholesterol in hope of warding off dementia or Alzheimer’s disease. Plus, the study did not find a causeand-effect relationship.
“Overall, high cholesterol was associated with a bad cognitive (mental) decline, but when we look only at people who were in good cognitive health at 85, a rising cholesterol was associated with a better outcome,” Silverman said.
For young and middle-aged people, it’s important to keep your cholesterol low, he noted. “There are many studies that show it is a risk factor for cognitive decline in people through their mid-70s,” he said.
The researchers also found that using statins was associated with protection against mental decline overall. But as people got older and older, the protective effects of statins were reduced, Silverman said.
“We don’t think that having a high cholesterol becomes a good thing – you’re likely to be the kind of person for whom cholesterol doesn’t matter.
“We can focus on old people with high cholesterol and look for factors that protect them from cognitive decline.”
The report was published online on March 5 in the journal Alzheimer’s & Dementia. – The New York Times