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Diet and Serum Cholesterol in Man

Lack of Effect of Dietary Cholesterol^1,2,

Laboratory of Physiological Hygiene, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, the Agricultural Research Service, U. S. Department of Agriculture, and the Metabolism Unit, Hastings State Hospital, Hastings, Minnesota

1. Two cross sectional surveys in Minnesota on young men and 4 on older men showed no relationship between dietary cholesterol and the total serum cholesterol concentration over most of the ordinary intake range characteristic of American diets.

2. Two surveys on the Island of Sardinia failed to show any difference in the serum cholesterol concentrations of men of the same age, physical activity, relative body weight and general dietary pattern but differing markedly in cholesterol intake.

3. Careful study during 4 years of 33 men whose diets were consistently very low in cholesterol showed that their serum values did not differ from 35 men of the same age and economic status whose diets were very high in cholesterol.

4. Comparisons made of 23 men before and after they had voluntarily doubled their cholesterol intakes and of 41 men who halved theirs failed to show any response in the serum cholesterol level in 4 to 12 months while the rest of the diet was more or less constant.

5. A detailed study of the complete dietary intakes of 119 Minnesota businessmen failed to show any significant increase of serum cholesterol with increasing dietary cholesterol intake.

6. In 4 completely controlled experiments on men the addition to or removal from the diet of 500 to 600 mg of cholesterol daily had no effect on the serum cholesterol fall produced by a rice-fruit diet or on the rise in changing from a rice-fruit diet to an ordinary American diet.

7. In a completely controlled experiment on 5 physically healthy men the change from a rice-fruit diet containing 500 mg of cholesterol daily to the same diet devoid of cholesterol had no effect on the serum level.

8. In a similar experiment with 13 men receiving 66 gm of fat daily there was no significant effect in changing from a cholesterol intake of 374 mg/day to one of 1369 mg/day. In another 12 men the reverse change was likewise without effect on the blood serum.

9. It is concluded that in adult men the serum cholesterol level is essentially independent of the cholesterol intake over the whole range of natural human diets. It is probable that infants, children and women are similar.

² This investigation was supported (in part) by research grant H-10 from the United States Public Health Service.

³ Present address: Institute for Arthritis and Metabolic Diseases, Bethesda, Maryland.

⁴ Present address: Institute of Physiology, University of Naples.

Manuscript received 3 November 1955.

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