The interaction of lipids and inflammatory markers predict negative symptom severity in patients with schizophrenia

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Herein, we found an interaction between lipids and inflammation as a predictor of worse negative symptom severity in individuals with schizophrenia. Future studies may seek to further elucidate this relationship and thereby reveal novel treatment targets for negative symptoms.

If I’m reading this correctly, they didn’t find an association with the effect of high cholesterol unless there was also high inflammation.

Of the metabolic markers, only ( a ) total cholesterol ( r = 0.387, p = 0.005) and ( b ) LDL ( r = 0.356, p = 0.009) were significantly correlated with the PANSS negative subscale score. The sample was split between those with high and low inflammation as indexed by a median split of a composite score of tumor necrosis factor (TNF) and interleukin-6 (IL-6). In the low inflammation subgroup ( c ), there was no relationship between PANSS Negative Symptom Subscale Score and cholesterol ( p = 0.514) or LDL ( p = 0.317), whereas in the high inflammation subgroup ( d ) significant correlations were found for total cholesterol ( p = 0.001) and LDL ( p = 0.002).

The TNF + IL-6 group × LDL group significantly predicted negative symptoms (β = 1.533, p = 0.016) as well as individual negative symptom items including blunted affect ( r = 0.293, p = 0.035) and emotional withdrawal ( r = 0.346, p = 0.012).

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