Two Apples a Day

The great cholesterol controversy that has waged incessantly for the past decade was beginning to wane last week. As the American Heart'Association held its scientific sessions in St. Louis, even onetime skeptics were prepared to concede that abnormal quantities of fatty material in the blood should be regarded as one of the major factors in producing heart-artery disease.* Thirty-two papers were presented on the subject; the evidence seemed overwhelming. Said Minneapolis Physiologist Ancel Keys: "No one can say that the maintenance of a low level of blood cholesterol will positively prevent development of artery disease. We don't know that this is the answer in whole or even in large part. But it's like a person with hypertension; we can assume he'd run less risk if his blood pressure were lower."

One piece of evidence was offered by Keys himself. Intrigued by the fact that Italians enjoy a far lower rate of coronary disease than Americans, Keys decided to find out why. Last week he suggested a possible answer: the Italian diet. Noting that Italians eat more leafy vegetables and fruits than Americans, Keys reasoned that some ingredient in these foods restricted the level of cholesterol and other fatty materials in the blood.

The Key ingredient turned out to be pectin, a carbohydrate well known to many U.S. housewives: it is the substance that makes jelly jell. Keys found that taking 15 grams of pectin daily for three weeks lowered blood cholesterol levels by an average of ten milligrams--"a modest but significant amount." For Americans who want to keep the doctor away, Keys added a familiar note: his 15-gram daily dose corresponds roughly to the amount of pectin found in two ripe apples.

*Other recognized factors: heredity, hypertension, inactivity, obesity.

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