Study of the relationship between lipids and lipoproteins with depression

The present study was aimed at exploring the possible relationship between cholesterol, triglycerides, low and high density lipoprotein levels with depression in normal participants. One hundred and ninety two men were randomly selected among those attending for general health screening in a large industrial company as the subjects of this research. Before having their blood sampled for determining their blood total cholesterol, triglycerides, high density and low density lipoprotein levels, they all completed Beck Depression Inventory (BDI). The results revealed significant negative correlation between cholesterol and HDL levels and depression. Hierarchical regression confirmed these finding and indicated that HDL level accounted further variance in depression severity not accounted for by cholesterol, triglycerides and LDL. In other words the results showed that after controlling other confounding variables, cholesterol and HDL levels had significant negative correlation with depression. In addition they could significantly predict the variation in depression after eliminating the effect of other variables. Triglycerides and LDL had no significant relation with depression. These findings expanded the previous studies and provided additional support for the relationship between blood serum cholesterol and HDL levels with depression. Careful research is needed to explore the underlying nature of these relationships.