A Study of Serum Total Cholesterol and HDL-Cholesterol in Depression

Introduction: In keeping with the emerging danger of depression, this study has been carried out to estimate serum total cholesterol and HDL-cholesterol in cases of depression and compare the levels with that of age and sex matched healthy controls. Aim: To measure the serum total cholesterol and HDLCholesterol in clinically diagnosed patients with depression and study their levels in different age groups and gender. Method: Serum Cholesterol estimation by CHOD/PAP method. HDL cholesterol estimation by PEG/ CHOD-PAP method. Results: Serum cholesterol and Serum HDL-Cholesterol were observed to be significantly (p<0.05) lower in patients with depression, when compared with that of healthy controls In addition, serum total cholesterol concentration showed a declining trend as the disease progressed from mild to severe. Conclusion: It is suggestive that cholesterol may have an important role to play in our efforts to ameliorate the social burden of depression and mitigate the disease progression.A larger sample size, longer duration of study and inclusion of drug-naïve cases could have been more conclusive.