Parkinson's Disease and Serum Cholesterol Levels: A Case Control Study

Background: Several recent prospective, population-based studies suggest a role of lipid and cholesterol metabolism in the pathogenesis of Parkinson's disease (PD). This study is to test the hypothesis that lower serum cholesterol levels may be associated with PD. Methods: The total serum cholesterol, LDL-C, HDL-C, and VLDL-C levels of 107 patients with idiopathic Parkinson's disease and 106 control subjects were obtained. In both groups, subjects with known hyperlipidemia and smokers were excluded. All patients were evaluated according to the Unified Parkinson's Disease Rating Scale and staged according to the Hoehn and Yahr scale. The collected data of PD patients and control subjects were compared using two-sample t-tests and Pearson's Chi-Square tests. Results: The mean serum total cholesterol level was 189 +/- 30.7 mg/dL in the PD group and 199.3 +/- 20.2 mg/dL in the control group (p=0.983). The mean VLDL-C level was 13.2 +/- 2.8 for patients, and 24.9 +/- 3.2 for control group (p = 0.155). Conclusion: Although the mean total cholesterol level and VLDL-C level were lower in the patient group, this study did not show any statistically significant difference between PD patients and the control group.