Cholesterol and depressive symptoms in older men across time

Abstract

This study aimed to examine reciprocal relations between cholesterol and depression. We assessed cholesterol and depressive symptoms twice over a 3-year interval, using 842 men from the Veterans Affairs Normative Aging Study ( M = 64, standard deviation = 8). Because depressive symptoms were skewed, we used zero-inflated Poisson analyses. Cross-lagged models showed that cholesterol levels at T1 predicted the existence of depressive symptoms at T2, covarying T1 depressive symptoms, age, smoking status, body mass index, and medications. Depressive symptoms at T1 did not predict cholesterol at T2. Low cholesterol levels may be risk factors for development of depressive symptoms in late life.