LDL

Cholesterol is transported in the blood via lipid-protein particles called low-density lipoproteins (LDL) (See Alberts et al. pg 791¹).

It is now widely accepted that high levels of LDL in the blood cause atherosclerosis, which in turn increases the risk of a cardiovascular event. The connection between LDL and cardiovascular risk was rancorously disputed over the course of the 20th century. The story of this dispute is a case study in the history of science. It reveals the dynamics by which the accumulation of multiple independent lines of evidence can overthrow an established paradigm.

Links

• The Cholesterol Wars², a book chronicling the history of scientific understanding of the LDL/atherosclerosis connection.

• Podcast episode from Hard Drugs on the same topic.

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1. Bruce Alberts, Rebecca Heald, Alexander Johnson, David Morgan, Martin Raff, Keith Roberts, and Peter Walter. Molecular Biology of the Cell: Seventh Edition. WW Norton & Company, 2022. ↩

2. Daniel Steinberg. The cholesterol wars: the skeptics vs the preponderance of evidence. Elsevier, 2011. URL: https://a.co/d/0fRLOWcA. ↩