Hypocholesterolemia, Hypertriglyceridemia, Suicide, and Suicide Ideation in Children Hospitalized for Psychiatric Diseases

This article reports on a study of 220 children, ages 5-18 years, hospitalized with affective, adjustment, disruptive, anxiety, schizophrenic, other, & organic psychiatric disorders, to assess relationships of total plasma cholesterol (TC) & triglyceride (TG) values to suicide behaviors. The authors speculate that the associations between low TC level, high TG level, suicide tendency, & hospitalization for psychiatric disease do not reflect cause & effect but may be epiphenomena. (36 Refs.)