American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, Vol 19, 46-58, Copyright © 1966 by The American Society for Clinical Nutrition, Inc.

Effect of Interchanging Bread and Sucrose as Main Source of Carbohydrate in a Low Fat Diet on the Serum Cholesterol Levels of Healthy Volunteer Subjects

¹ From the Departments of Medicine A and B, Hadassah Hebrew University Hospital and Medical School, Jerusalem, Israel

Fifteen normal volunteer subjects were given a control high fat "western" diet. After a period of five weeks they were split into two groups: group A switched to a low fat diet in which bread (350 to 450 gm. per day) furnished 60 per cent of the total calories. Sucrose was withheld from these subjects. Group B switched from the western diet to a diet equally low in fat as that for group A, but in which the bread intake was limited to a maximum of 150 gm. per day. These subjects had to eat least 100 gm. of sucrose, 50 gm. of jam or marmalade and 30 gm. of candy per day.

After five weeks the diets of the two groups were interchanged; after another five weeks both groups returned to the western high fat diet.

The change from the western diet to the low fat diet produced a decrease in blood cholesterol in both groups; however, the decrease occurred more quickly and was more marked in group A (on the "bread" diet) than in group B (on the "sucrose" diet). There were marked differences in reaction to the changes in diet among individual subjects. On reversing the diets the average blood cholesterol level fell in the group which switched to the bread diet, it rose in the group that changed from the bread to the sucrose diet. Similar changes were noted in the serum cholesterol and serum triglycerides of a patient with "essential" hypertriglyceridemia who participated in the experiment.

The results indicate that in addition to the quantity and nature of the dietary fat, other components of the diet have an effect on serum cholesterol. Whether the effects of the bread and sucrose diets, respectively, were due to the different type of carbohydrate or protein content, or both, remains to be determined by further studies.