QUICK SEARCH:   [advanced] Author: Keyword(s): Year:  Vol:  Page:

This Article Full Text (PDF) Purchase Article View Shopping Cart Alert me when this article is cited Alert me if a correction is posted Services Similar articles in this journal Similar articles in PubMed Alert me to new issues of the journal Download to citation manager Citing Articles Citing Articles via HighWire Citing Articles via Google Scholar Google Scholar Articles by Kritchevsky, D. Search for Related Content PubMed PubMed Citation Articles by Kritchevsky, D.

Dietary Protein, Cholesterol and Atherosclerosis: A Review of the Early History^1,2,

The Wistar Institute, Philadelphia, PA 19104-4268

The first purely nutritional investigation into experimental atherosclerosis was carried out by Ignatowski in 1908. Believing that a toxic metabolite of animal protein led to atherosclerosis, he fed meat to adult rabbits and milk and egg yolk to weanling rabbits and caused atherosclerosis. For the next two decades experimental efforts from many laboratories were directed at determining which, if any, animal protein was the most atherogenic. The discovery in 1912 that dietary cholesterol per se was atherogenic turned attention to fat and cholesterol, eclipsing work on dietary protein. In 1926 Clarkson and Newburgh showed that the amount of cholesterol present in the animal protein they fed was insufficient to be atherogenic, demonstrating that some factor other than lipid determined atherogenicity. In 1940 Meeker and Kesten showed that animal protein (casein) was more atherogenic that plant protein (soy). Carroll and his co-workers showed that most proteins of animal origin were more cholesterolemic for rabbits than were proteins of vegetable origin, although there was some overlap. Cholesterol turnover is slower and fecal excretion of cholesterol is reduced in rabbits fed casein as opposed to those fed soy protein. The mechanisms underlying this effect are moot.

KEY WORDS: • animal protein • atherosclerosis • cholesterolemia • plant protein • soy protein

¹ Presented at the First International Symposium on the Role of Soy in Preventing and Treating Chronic Disease, held in Mesa, AZ, February 20–23, 1994. The symposium was sponsored by Protein Technologies International, the soybean growers from Nebraska, Indiana, and Iowa and the United Soybean Board. Guest editors for this symposium were Mark Messina, 1543 Lincoln Street, Port Townsend, WA 98368, and John W. Erdman, Jr., Division of Nutritional Sciences, University of Illinois, Urbana, IL 61801-3852.

² Supported in part by a Research Career Award (HL00734) from the National Institutes of Health.

This article has been cited by other articles:

				H. Oda Functions of Sulfur-Containing Amino Acids in Lipid Metabolism J. Nutr., June 1, 2006; 136(6): 1666S - 1669S. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]

				M. R. Adams, D. L. Golden, T. C. Register, M. S. Anthony, J. B. Hodgin, N. Maeda, and J.K. Williams The Atheroprotective Effect of Dietary Soy Isoflavones in Apolipoprotein E-/- Mice Requires the Presence of Estrogen Receptor-{alpha} Arterioscler Thromb Vasc Biol, November 1, 2002; 22(11): 1859 - 1864. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]