Cholesterol

The results of analyses of Eskimo foods are presented in Table 1. On the basis of nutritional surveys with individual food weighings in different families from four Eskimo settlements in Alaska and the above-mentioned results of cholesterol determinations in Eskimo foods, supplemented by figures available for the cholesterol content of nonEskimo foods (Okey, 1945; Pihl, 1952), the cholesterol intake of Eskimos has been estimated (Tables 2, 3). From these calculations it is observed that the mean caloric consumption of the 45 adult male and female Eskimos was about 2,700 calories, the fat consumption was 105 g and the mean cholesterol intake was roughly 340 mg daily, varying from 150 mg to 700 mg per day. It should be noted that these cholesterol figures may be considered as minimum values because several of the food items ingested could not be included in the calculation since the cholesterol content was unknown. It may also be noted that the cholesterol intake varies greatly from one Eskimo group to another, depending on the different dietary habits. Thus, it was observed that among the inland Eskimos, the Nunamiuts at Anaktuvuk Pass, some of the men consumed as much as 70 grams or more of boiled brain from mountain sheep in a single evening meal yielding almost 600 mg cholesterol from this food item alone. 

It is thus evident that some Eskimos have fairly high cholesterol intakes compared with healthy American white men, although the mean intake for the 45 Eskimos studied is in the order of 2.5 g per week (varying from 1 to 5 g) . This corresponds to the group of moderate habitual cholesterol intakes reported for normal American men (Keys, 1949) while in the Inland Eskimos the mean figure is in the order of 4 g cholesterol per week, which corresponds to the group of highest habitual cholesterol intakes for normal American men, reported by Keys (1949). 

Keys (1950) has estimated that the American diet varies with regard to cholesterol content from a low of 200-300 mg daily to 700-800 mg, depending on the food consumed. Gubner and Ungerleider ( 1949) have given the figure 200--360 mg for daily cholesterol intake on a mixed diet. 

It thus appears that the estimated mean figures for cholesterol intakes in Eskimos may be comparable to those of Whites on a mixed diet. 

The average figure for the daily fat consumption in the 45 Eskimo subjects reported here was only about 105 g (377 of the calories), while in a larger survey the average daily fat consumption in Alaskan Eskimos was 139 g (40 % of the calories). In normal white men living in Alaska the fat consumed represented 37.5 %( of the calories ingested. 

In the Eskimo subjects the mean serum cholesterol concentration was 203 mg per 100 ml (Table 4) which is about the same as is found in normal Whites. Thus L. J. Milch (personal communications) found an average level of 207 mg cholesterol per 100 ml serum in Whites 30-35 years old. 

On the other hand, the Eskimo serum concentration of Sf 12-20 lipoproteins was 20 mgl100 ml as against 28 mgl100 ml in Whites of similar age, observed by Milch (personal communications). For Whites under 25 years of age Milch found 24 mg/lOO ml, and for Whites 40-45 years of age 38 mg/l 00 m!.

Official History:

The AHA Reorganizes: The AHA reorganizes, transforming from a scientific society to a voluntary health organization composed of volunteers and supported by professional staff. Support for the AHA’s mission becomes much more visible, with fundraising activities taking hold in communities and businesses.

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"Founded in 1924 at the outset of the heart disease epidemic, the AHA was a scientific society of cardiologists seeking to better understand this new affliction. For decades, the AHA was small and underfunded, with virtually no income. Then in 1948, it got lucky: Proctor & Gamble (P&G) designated the group to receive all the funds from its "Truth or Consequences" content on the radio, raising $1,740,000, or 17 million in 2014 dollars. At a luncheon, P&G executives presented a check to the AHA president, and "suddenly the coffers were filled and there were funds avaliable for research, public health progress and development of local groups--all the stuff that dreams are made of!" according to the AHA's official history. The P&G check was the "bang of big bucks" that "launched" the group. Indeed, one year later the group opened seven chapters across the country and collected $2,650,000 from donations.

The new funds in 1948 allowed the group to hire its first professional director, a former fund-raiser for the American Bible Society, who unfolded an unprecedented fund-raising campaign across the United States. There were variety shows, fashion shows, quiz programs, auctions, and collections at movie theaters, all meant to raise money and let Americans know that heart disease was the country's number one killer."

-Nina Teicholz - The Big Fat Surprise - Page 48

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Instead, what happened was that after the diet-heart hypothesis became adopted by the AHA and NIH, Keys’s bias was institutionalized. These two organizations set the agenda for the field and controlled most of the research dollars, and scientists who didn’t want to end up like Mann had to go along with the AHA-NIH agenda.

The AHA and NIH were parallel, entwined forces from the start. In 1948, when the AHA was launched as a national, volunteer-run organization, one of its first tasks was to establish a “heart lobby” in Washington, DC, to convince President Eisenhower to set up the National Heart Institute—which he did, also in 1948.

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page 67

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"It was Ancel Keys himself who first discredited this notion[avoid eating cholesterol to reduce accumulation in body]. Although in 1952 he stated that there was "overwhelming evidence" for the theory, he then found that no matter how much cholesterol he fed to the volunteers in his studies, the cholesterol levels in their blood remained unchanged. He found that "tremendous" dosages of cholesterol added t othe daily diet--up to 3,000 milligrams per day (a single large egg has just under 200 mg)--had only a "trivial" effect and by 1955, he had already decided that "this point requires no further consideration."

-Nina Teicholz - Big Fat Surprise - Page 23

"In previous years, the focus of heart disease research had been on proteins and carbohydrates, but an explosion of new methods for separating out fatty acids, especially a 1952 invention called gas-liquid chromatography, made it possible to test different kinds of fats(also called lipids) and their effect on human biology. The "sleepy old field of lipid research suddenly took off for the moon," wrote E.H. "Pete" Ahrens of Rockefeller University in Newy York City, who was one of the leading lipidologists of his day. A swarm of researchers hit the field; funds for research swelled each year, and, as Ahrens described it, "lipid research hit the Big Time."

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-Nina Teicholz - Big Fat Surprise - 24

"At the Institute for Metabolic Research in Oakland, California, for instance, researchers first discovered in 1952 that replacing animal fats with vegetable fats would dramatically lower total cholesterol."

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A later study in a patient maintained for a prolonged period of time on diets in which vegetable and animal fat were ‘alternated in calorically equivalent amounts for specific periods, revealed findings comparable with the preceding, that is, a fall in cholesterol and phospholipids on the vegetable fat intake, and a rise to average levels on formula diets in which the fat was entirely of animal origin. During a portion of this study the fat was derived entirely from egg yolk in an amount equivalent to 36 egg yolks daily. Normal hut not supernormal levels of cholesterol occurred during the egg yolk feeding.

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SUMMARY The use of formula diets containing large amounts of vegetable fat has resulted consistently in a major fall in serum cholesterol and in phospholipids. Whatever the meaning of this observation, it is apparent that high dietary fat per se does not result in elevation of serum cholesterol.