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4385446 tn?1353798268

Low cholesterol

Any info on low cholesterol? Can anxiety or mental health cause it? Or anxiety medication?
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15695260 tn?1549593113
Hello and welcome to the forum?  What are your actual cholesterol numbers?   Obviously having too high of cholesterol is well documented as an issue with consequences but too low can also be problematic.  If your tests revealed too low of cholesterol, did the doctor ask you to do liver functioning tests?  That can be associated.  Thyroid issues can also be involved.  And having low cholesterol leads to mental health issues as well as other complications.  Give us more information and we'll discuss! https://www.healthline.com/health/cholesterol-can-it-be-too-low#low-cholesterol
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Avatar universal
Depression might cause it, or it might cause depression.  Nobody knows except there is some connection.  Statins might therefore cause it if they lower LDL too much, but there isn't solid proof this happens.  Thyroid problems can cause it, and thyroid problems can also cause anxiety and/or depression, so another possible connection there.  Might be genetic causes.  As for meds, they're so nuts as to how differently they affect us it's impossible to know.  Generally, doesn't seem to, but for a specific individual, who knows?  Because serotonin might have some involvement with mental health problems, though it doesn't appear really to be a cause of it just a treatment for it, there is some theorizing that maybe there's a connection there, but again, the notion that serotonin causes mental illness is mostly an invention of Eli Lilly when they came out with Prozac many years ago.  Since messing with serotonin doesn't cure any mental illness but only offers some symptomatic relief, that theory appears to have been a marketing lie.  Now, remember, cholesterol isn't bad for you, only some kinds are bad for you.  Too much LDL oxidizes easily and can therefore stick to your blood vessels and clog them if you have insufficient antioxidants in your system to counter that.  But HDL is a beneficial form of cholesterol, and it's possible benzodiazapenes lower HDL, which would be bad if it's true.  Hasn't happened to me, I have high HDL, but I also eat a lot of fish and take fish oil every day.  If you do have very low cholesterol, however, I can see that possibly causing anxiety and depression because without sufficient cholesterol we can't make our sexual hormones, and not having enough of them could certainly cause mental problems.  
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