The effects of fat and cholesterol on social behavior in monkeys.

Abstract

We report here on the social behavior of 30 adult male cynomolgus monkeys, maintained in social groups of five animals each and assigned for 22 months to one of two dietary conditions: a) "luxury"--relatively high fat, high cholesterol (43% calories from fat, 0.34 mg cholesterol/Calorie of diet); or b) "prudent"--relatively low fat, low cholesterol (30% calories from fat, 0.05 mg cholesterol/Calorie of diet). The dietary manipulation resulted in higher total serum cholesterol (TSC) and lower high density lipoprotein cholesterol (HDLC) concentrations in luxury diet animals than in their prudent diet counterparts (p's less than 0.05). Additionally, we monitored the occurrence of 21 behavioral acts frequently exhibited by this species in captivity. Of these behaviors, only contact aggression differed between dietary conditions (p less than 0.03), with prudent diet monkeys initiating more aggression than luxury diet animals. These results are consistent with studies linking relatively low serum cholesterol concentrations to violent or antisocial behavior in psychiatric and criminal populations and could be relevant to understanding the significant increase in violence-related mortality observed among people assigned to cholesterol-lowering treatment in clinical trials.

A study of serum lipid profile and serum apolipoproteins A1 and B in Indian male violent criminal offenders

“…With regard to cholesterol, the findings in this study are similar to those in previous studies, which suggested a link between lower cholesterol and violence to others (Virkkunen, 1983;Kaplan et al, 1991;Muldoon et al, 1992;Mufti and Arfken, 1998;Hillbrand and Spitz, 1999;Golomb et al, 2000;Agargun et al, 2002;Repo-Tiihonen et al, 2002) and violent suicide (Engelberg, 1992;Vevera et al, 2003). The findings with respect to apolipoproteins A1 and B and violence are new.…”

“…This includes the serotonergic receptors and hence may lead to reduced central serotonergic activity. This was the hypothesis proposed by Kaplan et al (1991), Engelberg (1992) and Hillbrand et al (2000) to explain the role of lowered cholesterol in aggression.…”

Violent behavior associated with hypocholesterolemia due to a novel APOB gene mutation

“…[2][3][4][5][6][7][8] In addition, experimental studies have shown an increase in violent behavior in monkeys assigned to low-cholesterol diets. 36,37 Human and animal research indicates that low or lowered cholesterol levels may reduce central serotonin activity, which in turn is causally linked to violent behaviors. 4,38 Therefore, members of a family who inherit hypocholesterolemia might be expected to be prone to violent behavior.…”

Lipid levels and emotional distress among healthy male college students

“…39 On the other hand, chronically low baseline cholesterol levels may have deleterious CNS eects, 40 and have been found in animal studies to increase aggression. 41 Three large treatment studies have failed to ®nd increased nonillness deaths or signi®cant emotional distress in their treatment arms. However, they also have methodological limitations relevant to this matter.…”