Cholesterol 'helps' damaged brain

[Northerner]

A diet high in cholesterol may help people with a fatal genetic disease which damages the brain, according to early studies in mice.

Patients with Pelizaeus-Merzbacher disease struggle to produce a fatty sheath around their nerves, which is essential for function.

A study, published in Nature Medicine, showed that a high-cholesterol diet could increase production.

The authors said the mice "improved dramatically".

Pelizaeus-Merzbacher disease (PMD) is one of many leukodystrophies in which patients struggle to produce the myelin sheath. It protects nerve fibres and helps messages pass along the nerves.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-18456749

 

[trophywench]

That's interesting. I thought they'd proved that dietary chol doesn't convert to blood chol?

A lady on another forum not a million miles away from here who has familial hyper cholesterol-thingy, recently deliberately ate a mega-lot of eggs the week before her chol blood test as an experiment. Her chol result was the lowest it had been in years .....

(She's not without humour. Her forum name is a green exotic fruit with a large stone, reckoned to be high in chol !)