Studies on the cholesterol content of normal human plasma

Abstract

Using normal human subjects, it was found that there is no relation between the amount of sterol ingested and either the free cholesterol or that in the form of esters in the blood-plasma during digestion. Usually no increase in these values occurred. However, the fasting value of plasma-cholesterol may be raised or lowered by sufficiently prolonged feeding with diets of high or low sterol content. These changes are quite pronounced in the ester fraction; the free cholesterol remains almost constant. The digitonin method was used for the estimation.