Abstract
Conclusions
1. Serum cholesterol and phospholipid determinations were made in 4 groups of subjects: 79 normal men without evident disease (“well controls,”WC), 80 men suffering from a variety of chronic disorders but without evidence of coronary artery or cerebrovascular disease (“sick controls,”SC), 223 men who had recovered from a frank myocardial infarction (MI), and 150 men who had recovered from a frank cerebral thrombosis (CT). In each group the cholesterol-phospholipid relationship appeared linear on a log-log scale and linear log-log regressions were calculated for each of the 4 groups. 2. In the 2 control groups, WC and SC, showing no evidence of coronary or cerebral atherosclerosis, the quantitative relationship between cholesterol and phospholipids was the same, confirming reports of other workers. Also, age did not affect this relationship. 3. In the 2 atherosclerosis groups, a substantial and highly significant abnormality in the quantitative relationship between cholesterol and phospholipids was observed (both groups showing the same abnormality). 4. There is, therefore, a disturbance in the normal balance between these 2 kinds of serum lipid in men with atherosclerosis. This imbalance was present over the entire range of observed cholesterol levels and is thought to represent some important and consistent lipid abnormality characteristic of atherosclerosis.
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