Transcript Lowered Cholesterol Levels and Violent Acts of Suicide: Is there an

Lowered Cholesterol
Levels and Violent Acts of
Suicide: Is there an
association?
By: Laura A. Urbin
ALHE 4060
July 20, 2006
Categorizing Suicide
• Suicide is usually thought of generally as a
person taking his or her own life. In reality,
acts of suicide can be placed into one of two
categories:
• 1. Violent
– Suffocating, shooting, drowning, cutting, etc.
• 2. Nonviolent or low-violence
– Self poisoning by ingestion of drugs, alcohol, petroleum
derivatives, etc.
• In studying patients who have committed suicide research shows that
lower levels of cholesterol can be associated with the violent acts of
suicide.
• This research is done by drawing blood from a patient who has been
admitted into the hospital for committing an act of suicide. The blood is
drawn within twenty-four hours of admission to check cholesterol levels
in the blood.
• Before this blood can be used in research to determine levels in
comparison between violent acts and non-violent acts the researcher
must look at patient criteria that may be confounding to the study. Some
of these confounding variables are:
– Cholesterol lowering medications
– Earlier diagnosis of depression
– Alcoholism or drug addiction
– Unusual dietary habits
After checking for confounding variables a researcher is then able to exclude
the data that may confound the results of the study.
• In comparing results between patients who have
committed violent acts, non-violent acts, or no
suicidal acts (control group) we find that patients
who have committed violent acts have considerably
lower levels of cholesterol than the other two
groups.
• In further research studying the association
between suicide and cholesterol we have found
that the missing link between the two is the
serotonin levels in the brain.
• Serotonin is a naturally occurring chemical in the
brain that suppresses harmful impulses such as
suicidal or aggressive behavior.
• As a patient lowers their cholesterol levels
they cause the levels of serotonin in their
brain to also decrease which ultimately
cause behaviors that had been suppressed
before to no longer be suppressed, giving the
reason for those more impulsive, violent acts
of suicide to be related to lower cholesterol
levels than non-violent acts of suicide.
• The purpose of my research was to prove that
there is an association between low levels of
cholesterol and violent acts of suicide
• I have found depletion of serotonin levels to be
another factor that is caused by lowering
cholesterol and ultimately leads to the act of suicide
itself.
• I did not do this research project to try to keep
people from lowering their cholesterol but instead
to keep people aware of possible side effects and
behaviors that can be associated with cholesterol
lowering that a person would not normally be made
aware of.