People with low cholesterol dying like flies

.

"Serum total cholesterol and risk of cardiovascular and non-cardiovascular mortality in old age: a population-based study", Yajun LiangEmail author, Davide Liborio Vetrano and Chengxuan QiuEmail,
BMC Geriatrics, 2017/17:294

First graph from the above paper.

Quote:

Results

During 23,196 person-years of follow-up (median per person, 7.5 years), 1059 (34.3%) participants died. Compared to normal total cholesterol (<5.18 mmol/l), borderline-high (5.18-6.21 mmol/l) and high (≥6.22 mmol/l) total cholesterol were associated with a decreased risk of all-cause mortality, with the multiple-adjusted hazard ratio (95% confidence interval, CI) of 0.71 (0.61–0.83) and 0.68 (0.57–0.80), respectively (P for trend <0.001). The competing risk regression models revealed that the reduced all-cause mortality associated with high total cholesterol (≥6.22 mmol/l)) was mainly due to the reduced risk of non-cardiovascular mortality (hazard ratio = 0.67, 95% CI = 0.51-0.88). These associations were statistically evident only among individuals without use of cholesterol-lowering medications.

Conclusions

The inverse association between high total cholesterol and reduced all-cause mortality in older adults is primarily due to non-cardiovascular mortality, especially among those who are not treated with cholesterol-lowering medications.