Older men and women with low cholesterol have a 39% higher risk of death

This study was published in the Journal of the American Geriatrics Society 2003 Jan;51(1):80-4.

Study title and authors:
Does inflammation or undernutrition explain the low cholesterol-mortality association in high-functioning older persons? MacArthur studies of successful aging.

Hu P, Seeman TE, Harris TB, Reuben DB.
Multicampus Program in Geriatric Medicine and Gerontology, UCLA School of Medicine, Los Angeles, California 90095, USA. phu@mednet.ucla.edu

This study can be accessed at: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/12534850

This study examined the association between cholesterol levels and 7-year all-cause mortality in 870 older men and women.

The study found that those men and women with lower cholesterol levels had a 39% higher risk of dying over the 7 year study, than those with higher cholesterol levels.