Experimental Studies on the Pathogenesis of Arteriosclerosis : The Effect of High-Carbohydrate and High-Fat Diets on the Development of Vascular Lesions

The cerebral, coronary and renal arteriosclerosis are now the main causes of death in the aged. The outlook for better health and longer life for our aging population rests, in large measure, upon elimination of vascular disease as a cause of death and disability. Arteriosclerosis in all probability has no single cause. It results most likely from a combination of factors. Among them presently implicated are heredity, diet, morphologic and chemical anatomy of the blood vessel wall, arterial blood pressure, lipid content of blood, and sex. Animal experimentation and epidemiological results have suggested that changes in the diet may be partially responsible for the increased incidence of arteriosclerosis. The approach to the problem by animal experiments has shown that arteriosclerosis, similar to but not identical with that of the human type, can be produced in a variety of experimental animals by dietary variations. Many kinds of diets have been used : some are deficient in one or more nutrients, others contain excessive amounts of certain constituents or combine excess of one with deficiency of another. The present work was undertaken to study the effects of sucrose and beef tallow on some biochemical factors such as blood lipids, glucose, immunoreactive insulin and enzymes, and on the development of arteriosclerosis including microangiopathy in the rabbits.