Studies in experimental animals indicate that hypertension steps up production of cholesterol in the body, suggesting a possible explanation for the accelerated development of atherosclerosis seen in many patients with hypertension.
Speaking at the American Heart Association meeting last month, Dr. Harold N. Adel and his associates from the Albert Einstein School of Medicine in New York City described experiments in which rats with hypertension were shown to manufacture cholesterol at a much faster rate than normal rats with normal blood pressure. Like man, rats develop atherosclerosis at a faster rate when hypertension is present.
In one experiment, Adel and his colleagues injected radioactivelytagged acetate—a source material for the manufacture of cholesterol by the liver—into hypertensive and normal rats. After an appropriate time had elapsed, blood, liver, and other tissues from both groups of rats were analyzed for their cholesterol content. Adel told of finding more radioactive cholesterol in the