Relationship between aorta cholesterol content and plasma lipids in guinea pigs fed an atherogenic diet.

Guinea pigs fed a diet enriched with 0.5% cholesterol for 15 weeks developed a 25% increase in their aorta cholesterol content. This increase was positively correlated with the mass of all the LDL components, but inversely correlated with the mass of the VLDL phospholipids and triglycerides. No clear relationship was detected with the HDL constituents. The partial correlation coefficients suggested that the harmful influence of the LDL or VLDL cholesterol generally depends on the actual variation of the other components of the lipoproteins, with the exception of triglycerides.