Production of Experimental Cholesterol-Induced Atherosclerosis in Chicks with Minimal Hypercholesterolemia and Organ Lipidosis

Abstract

Feeding chicks a mash enriched with 0.25 per cent cholesterol plus 5 per cent cottonseed oil induces a minimal sustained hypercholesterolemia. After 35 weeks of this regimen, birds exhibited a high incidence of gross cholesterol-induced atherosclerosis, particularly prominent in the thoracic aorta. The presence of atherosclerosis in these chicks with minimal diet-induced hypercholesterolemia lends further experimental support to the concept of the relationship of cholesterol in general, and exogenous cholesterol in particular, to the pathogenesis of human atherosclerosis.