Ritzel G, Stähelin H B, Schneeberger H, Wanner M, Jost M
Int J Vitam Nutr Res. 1979;49(4):419-27.
The causal relationship between hyperlipidemia and atherosclerotic diseases is undoubted. But studies of the last years have shown that this relationship is quite complex and may be even controversial. A food which has recently been placed in the foreground in lipid metabolism research is milk and its products. By accidental findings it was shown that the more milk was drunk, the lower the serum cholesterol concentration became. This brought about some controlled feeding studies on animals and humans. We chose swine for our feeding study because of their resemblance to human lipid metabolism. 57% of the whole energy consumed consisted of whey powder fed in a crossover study lasting 112 days. The results show that total cholesterol was significantly lower during whey feeding. The lipid decrease also included the HDL-fraction and, to a lesser degree, triglycerides. It seems well enough proved to be an accepted fact that the relative high content of saturated fatty aids in milk is cancelled by a substance present in milk and some of its products such as whey. Further investigations to study this milk factor in more detail including the application of high fat diets will be done.
