Dietary Carbohydrate and Serum Cholesterol Levels in Man

Abstract

Serum total cholesterol responses in two groups of institutionalized men fed modifications of a low fat dietary pattern allowing for the simultaneous variation of the type of carbohydrate and fat are reported. The results obtained with low sugar, high sugar and high sugar-lactose diets providing 45 per cent of total calories from carbohydrate and one of each of three test oils (safflower, olive and coconut) added to provide 38 per cent of the calories as fat were compared. Experimental periods were of four weeks’ duration. Serum cholesterol levels were slightly but significantly lower in those on the low sugar than in those on the high sugar diets. Since the size of this difference was about the same for each oil tested, no interaction between carbohydrate and fat was suggested. The partial substitution of lactose for sucrose in the high sugar diet did not further influence serum cholesterol except when coconut oil was the test fat; in this period a substantial elevation was noted. The carbohydrate effects on serum cholesterol are of a much smaller order of magnitude than the fat effects and manipulation of the source of dietary carbohydrate would appear to add little to the dietary regulation of blood cholesterol.