NEW YORK (Reuters Health) -
High cholesterol levels are
associated with an increased risk of Parkinson's disease,
according to findings from a Finnish study.

While it's well established that high cholesterol increases
heart disease risk, “the association between serum cholesterol
level and neurodegenerative diseases risk has been debated,”
write Dr. Gang Hu, of the National Public Health Institute,
Helsinki, Finland, and colleagues.

The researchers examined this relationship in a cohort of
24,773 Finnish men and 26,153 women between the ages of 25 and
74 years. A total of 321 men and 304 women developed
Parkinson's disease during an average follow-up of 18 years,
the researchers report in the medical journal Neurology.

Compared to people with the lowest cholesterol, those with
the highest had an 86 percent greater likelihood of developing
Parkinson's disease.

This increased risk applied to people 24 to 54 years of
age. “However, no association was found among subjects aged 55
years or older at baseline,” Hu's team explains.

SOURCE: Neurology, May 20, 2008.