American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, Vol 2, 316-322, Copyright © 1954 by The American Society for Clinical Nutrition, Inc.

Diet and Plasma Cholesterol Levels

¹ From the Departments of Medicine and Biochemistry, Faculty of Medicine, Queen's University, Kingston, Ontario, Canada

Five apparently healthy male subjects were placed upon diets having the following characteristics:

(1) 100 to 180 mg. cholesterol per day and 10.9 to 18.9 per cent of the total calories in the form of fat.

(2) 900 to 980 mg. cholesterol daily and with the same proportions for fat.

(3) 100 to 180 mg. cholesterol per day and 34 to 46 per cent of the total calories in the form of vegetable fat.

(4) 210 to 300 mg. cholesterol per day and 34 to 46 per cent of the total calories in the form of animal fat.

The diet low in fat and in cholesterol led to a highly significant decrease in plasma cholesterol levels, whereas the addition of cholesterol in the form of egg yolk did not cause any change. When the proportion of dietary fat was increased in the form of vegetable fat, a significant increase occurred in plasma cholesterol levels, and these values were not further significantly increased by a substitution of animal fat for the vegetable fat. The results of this investigation indicate that, within the limits used here, dietary cholesterol has no effect on plasma cholesterol levels, whereas alterations in the level of dietary fat, whether of animal or vegetable origin, led to parallel changes in plasma cholesterol.

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