Vitamins and other nutrients in cardiovascular disease.

Publisher Summary Considerable literature has been published in recent years pertaining to the postulated relationship between dietary intake and cardiovascular disease. In certain well-defined pathological or clinical entities such as thiamine deficiency and beriberi heart disease in man, pyridoxine deficiency, and arterial lesions in monkeys, or in nutritionally induced atherosclerosis in the chick, dog, rat, and monkey, the relationship is clear-cut. In atherosclerosis in man, however, the relationship is far less well established and is based almost entirely on indirect evidence. This chapter discusses some of the recent literature in this field. The concept that there may exist a relationship between lipids and atherosclerosis has been entertained for half a century, ever since rabbit arterial lesions were produced by feeding cholesterol. The evidence is incontrovertible that arterial lesions closely resembling the human disease may be induced in a variety of animal species by manipulation of serum lipid levels by dietary and other means. Likewise, it is established that human atherosclerosis is associated statistically with elevation of serum lipid levels and that other human diseases in which lipid abnormalities exist often have associated premature or excessive atherosclerosis.