CHOLESTEROL CONTENT OF WHOLE BLOOD IN PATIENTS WITH ARTERIAL HYPERTENSION

Abstract

The demonstration by Anitschkow¹ in 1912 that the feeding of pure cholesterol to rabbits produced lesions of the large arteries closely simulating human arteriosclerosis suggested the view, championed by the Aschoff school, that atheroma in man is primarily due to impregnation of the intima with lipoid material. With the development of satisfactory methods for the measurement of the lipoid content of the blood, many investigators have studied the cholesterol partition in the blood of persons with hypertension and arteriosclerosis, with the thought that the presence of a high cholesterol content might, in conformity with the experimental results, be of pathogenic significance in these conditions.² The demonstration of a consistent variance from the norm of the cholesterol metabolism in patients with hypertension, who are at least potentially subject to arteriosclerosis, might, besides helping to explain the close association which exists between these two conditions, disclose a new avenue for