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QJM Advance Access published online on November 28, 2008
QJM, doi:10.1093/qjmed/hcn158
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© The Author 2008. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the Association of Physicians. All rights reserved. For Permissions, please email: journals.permissions@oxfordjournals.org

History of the cholesterol controversy in Britain*

G. R. Thompson

From the Department of Metabolic Medicine, Division of Investigative Sciences, Imperial College, Hammersmith Hospital, Ducane Road, London W12 0NN, UK

Address correspondence to Professor G. Thompson, Department of Metabolic Medicine, Division of Investigative Sciences, Imperial College, Hammersmith Hospital, Ducane Road, London W12 0NN. email: g.thompson{at}imperial.ac.uk


  Abstract

The lipid hypothesis, the concept that cholesterol plays a causal role in atherosclerosis and cardiovascular disease, has been the subject of a controversy which started in the 1950s, peaked in the 1970s and 80s and then subsided in the 1990s. It was finally resolved by the positive outcome of the Scandinavian Simvastatin Survival Study, the first of 14 prevention trials using statins which showed that lowering cholesterol reduced both cardiovascular events and total mortality. This commentary focuses primarily on the events and people involved in the cholesterol controversy in Britain. The foremost critics of the lipid hypothesis are now deceased but unfortunately for many of the patients with hypercholesterolaemia and coronary heart disease it took the best part of 50 years to disprove the sceptics. This brief account relates why it took so long.

*This article is based on the author's book ‘The Cholesterol Controversy’ (ISBN 978-1-85315-802-5), published by the RSM Press.


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History of the cholesterol hypothesis in Britain
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