Extended essay: To what extent does a plant-based diet lower the risk of coronary artery disease?
comes to coronary artery disease.
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The cholesterol debate
In spite of these findings there are, and have always been, suspicions when it comes to
animal derived foods and how they raise blood cholesterol levels. There’s a widespread
perception that cholesterol isn’t to blame. However in 1913 a Russian pathologist, Nikolai
N. Anitschkow, tested hypercholesterolemia on rabbits. He isolated cholesterol from an
egg yolk then dissolved it in sunflower oil and fed it to rabbits. It took a couple of weeks for
him to notice how their arteries developed raised yellow lesions that were rich in ‘’lipoids’’.
It was very close to what human atherosclerosis looks like. 29
A controlled trial in 1981 studied 21 strict vegetarians for eight weeks. First they
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