Daejeon Ansan Hospital “Low HDL cholesterol increases the risk of Parkinson’s disease”

Studies have shown that lower high-density lipoprotein (HDL) cholesterol and greater fluctuations increase the risk of Parkinson’s disease by up to 60%.

On the 18th, a multidisciplinary research team at Korea University Ansan Hospital (Professor Joo-Hyun Park, Do-Hoon Kim of the Department of Family Medicine, and Professor Gyeong-Do Han of the Department of Information Statistics and Insurance Physics at Soongsil University) revealed this fact through a retrospective cohort study using health insurance information.

In this large-scale cohort study, the data of 38,404 people aged 65 and over who did not have Parkinson’s disease who received three or more health checks through National Health Insurance from 2008 to 2013 were analyzed.

As a result of investigating newly outbreaks of Parkinson’s disease during the follow-up period until the end of 2017, the quartile group with the lowest HDL cholesterol at the beginning of cohort enrollment had a 21% increased risk of Parkinson’s disease.

Among them, high HDL cholesterol variability increased the risk of Parkinson’s disease by 60%.

In particular, people with obesity or chronic kidney disease as an underlying disease had a higher risk than those who did not.

“HDL cholesterol levels are traditionally an important protective factor against cardiovascular disease. In addition to its protective effect against atherosclerosis, it can directly contribute to maintaining proper function of many organs and tissues through activation of various antioxidant pathways and alleviating inflammatory reactions.

“This study demonstrates that maintaining high plasma HDL cholesterol levels is associated with a reduced risk of developing neurodegenerative diseases such as Parkinson’s disease.”

Meanwhile, the study was selected as the representative thesis in the March 2021 issue of’Neurology’, a world-class academic journal in the field of neurology published by the American Neuroscience Society.