SEVERAL investigators have reported on blood cholesterol levels in schizophrenic patients receiving insulin coma therapy. Katzenelbogen and associates1 reported values on several patients during and after a coma showing that in some subjects there was no change over a period of three hours. Changes in any one coma seemed to be minimal or variable. Randall and associate2 reported that the total and free cholesterol increased during therapy and remained high for two weeks after treatment. Gottfried and Willner3 tested a few patients before and after a course of insulin therapy and found no significant variation. Recently, Larue and co-workers4 sampled patients at more frequent intervals during treatment and demonstrated a greater variability in those patients during the course of therapy than in schizophrenic patients not receiving treatment.
Unpublished data on 20 patients obtained by workers in this laboratory before, during, and after a course of insulin