In 2 carefully controlled studies with the same women with chronic schizophrenia, chlorpromazine was shown to raise serum cholesterol levels consistently and significantly. It was also a consistent finding that prior to chlorpromazine therapy cholesterol levels appeared to be related inversely to measures of withdrawal, seclusiveness, and gross psychopathology. After chlorpromazine therapy the cholesterol-behavior relationships were no longer apparent.VJONSIDERING the cholesterol-behavior relationships demonstrated in studies inFrom the volving normal and coronary-artery-disease populations, it is not surprising that specific cholesterol-behavior relationships are also demonstrable among populations of psychiatric patients, where behavioral characteristics and patterns are more florid and intense. It is also not unexpected that the cholesterol-behavior relationships observed in both kinds of subjects appear to have much in common, in terms of the kinds of behavioral characteristics associated with the higher and lower serum levels of cholesterol. 27 With the advent of potent pharmacological agents capable of altering behavior and personality in the mentally ill, their effect upon serum cholesterol and other lipids becomes theoretically and clinically important, for one might reasonably expect significant changes in behavior to be accompanied by changes in cholesterol, or vice versa.
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