How do we know that we wouldn't be messing things up if we lowered cholesterol ahead of time before the viral infection? Maybe whatever the body's doing depends on having the higher cholesterol before the viral infection and then lowering it afterwards.

Where did all the pro-statin people come from, by the way? Every time I turn around someone is here going "But SERIOUSLY! Cholesterol MIGHT BE BAD!" You're probably not a pro-statin person, but your post on top of everybody else's got me wondering again.

As far as we know, viruses don't use fuel. They are just DNA or RNA snippets in protein shells. No one's found any evidence that they eat anything. (Bacteria "eat", but they're cells.) IF there is a connection between cholesterol levels and fighting viruses, it might have something to do with cell receptors, which are also involved with cholesterol going into cells. But again, maybe whatever happens to the cell receptors also affects cholesterol levels rather than the cholesterol level having a direct effect on the viral infection.

Or, here's a crazy idea, maybe it's the ambulance effect again, and the cells are intaking cholesterol to better fight off the viruses. That would have the result of reduced serum levels but the cholesterol would still be in the body. Now imagine if someone goes on statins to prevent a viral infection--might they actually achieve the opposite effect and get sicker?

I hate the press sometimes. Like now.

The original study can be found here and it is an open access publication: Host Defense against Viral Infection Involves Interferon Mediated Down-Regulation of Sterol Biosynthesis

The funding of the research comes from public and charitable funding, not from pharmaceutical companies.

The research is extensive and is pretty inpenetrable for a non-expert however the authors provide a summary of the article that is more readable:

Currently, little is known about the crosstalk between the body's immune and metabolic systems that occurs after viral infection. This work uncovers a previously unappreciated physiological role for the cholesterol-metabolic pathway in protecting against infection that involves a molecular link with the protein interferon, which is made by immune cells and known to “interfere” with viral replication.

Our initial investigation into how lowered cholesterol might protect against viral infection reveals that the protection is not due to a requirement of the virus for cholesterol itself but instead involves a particular side-branch of the pathway that chemically links lipids to proteins. Drugs such as statins and small interfering RNAs that block this part of the pathway are also shown to protect against cytomegalovirus (CMV) infection of cells in culture and in mice. This provides the first example of targeting a host metabolic pathway in order to protect against an acute infection.

This seems like a facinating bit of new research to me. Cholesterol and its biosynthesis pathways in your body are complex and far more than just cholesterol is either good or bad. This research does not seem to have much to do with blood cholesterol either.

There is a lot of research going on currently into the interactions of viruses and cholesterol pathways.

This message brought to you by AstraZeneca Pharmaceuticals.

Cholesterol is used by the body to create and maintain cell membranes, amoung other things. To me, it stands to reason that cholestrol falls during a viral infection because the body is busy rebuilding/repairing itself! It seems to me that if the cholesterol level is low in the first place, if the person gets an infection, that their body would have a harder time repairing itself.

The guy quoted in that article basically says that something MIGHT be the case. From there, the media made a story out of it. The journalist in that article is stretching to make something out of nothing.