Production of experimental cholesterol-induced atherosclerosis in chicks with minimal hypercholesterolemia and organ lipidosis.

C HRONIC cholesterol feeding leads to the development of atherosclerosis in the chick."' 2 In all our previous studies, marked hypercholesterolemia and organ lipidosis were consistent concomitants of this cholesterol-induced atheromatosis.'Human atherosclerosis frequently occurs in people with presumably normal plasma and tissue cholesterol levels. Ostensibly cholesterol metabolism is not deranged in such persons. Consequently many investigators have suggested that atherosclerosis in man differs fundamentally in pathogenesis and etiology from the cholesterolinduced lesion in experimental animals.8',1 The present study was undertaken to explore this problem further. Its purpose was to determine whether cholesterol-induced atherosclerosis could be produced in the chick with minimal concomitant hypercholesterolemia and organ lipidosis. In the course of this investigation, data were also obtained on the relationship in individual birds between plasma lipid levels (cholesterol and phospholipid) and atherogenesis (spontaneous and cholesterolinduced).