Influence of Fatty Acids on Levels of Serum Cholesterol

As Kritchevsky has indicated, the influence of fatty acids on levels of serum cholesterol is important to many physicians, because they have used the sermn cholesterol level as an aid h~ diagnosing heart disease. They believe that a reduction of the serum cholesterol level by regulating the dietary intake of the kind and the amount of fat may lower the risk of developing heart disease (2). On the other hand, a study of the statistics on death rates in specific age groups iu the United States indicates that diabetes and heal~ disease follow the same pattern in that, unlike cancer, their rate of incidence increases with age. In diabetes, the dearrangement in carbohydrate metabolism has been traced to a deficiency in secretion of insulin. In heart disease, the dearrangement in lipid metabolism has not, to date, been traced to any hormone or enzyme deficiency.