Dr. Xuemei Huang, and team, from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, compared the lipid levels of 124 Parkinson’s patients with a comparable group of 112 healthy subjects.
The investigators found that men (but not women) with low cholesterol levels were more likely to develop Parkinson’s.
The scientists speculate that the findings may result from cholesterol’s role as a precursor for hormones/chemical modulators involved in central nervous system function or from it’s possible function in ridding the body of the toxins that can cause the disorder.