A large study of Parkinson’s disease led by researchers at the University of North Carolina (UNC) in the US has shown that low levels of ‘bad’ or LDL cholesterol were present in a group of men long before these men were diagnosed with Parkinson’s (Movement disorders, doi: 10.1002/mds.22013).
This follows a 2006 UNC study, which established that those with low levels of the cholesterol are more likely to have Parkinson’s disease than people with high LDL levels (C&I 2007, 1, 4). But that study did not clarify whether low LDL levels were present in participants before they were diagnosed with Parkinson’s, or if they developed low LDL after.