Relevance of hypercholesterolemia to fetal and pediatric atherosclerosis.

Ubiquitous atherosclerotic changes in fetal and pediatric subjects demonstrate the fundamental importance of repetitive hemodynamic stresses and cannot be explained on the basis of the hypercholesterolemic/lipid hypothesis because serum cholesterol levels at this age lie within allegedly "desirable blood levels." This fact, inconsistent with the lipid hypothesis, renders absurd the widespread dietary restriction of cholesterol and animal fats as prevention of atherosclerosis. Iatrogenic effects of atherosclerosis in humans and its experimental production in herbivores at serum cholesterol levels below infant levels strongly support the "vascular fatige" concept and negate the lipid hypothesis. Neither is atherosclerosis a manifestation of senescence because age is merely a time factor indicating the duration of exposure to hemodynamic stresses that are variable with time and location.