William J. Raynor

Diet, Serum Cholesterol, and Death from Coronary Heart Disease: The Western Electric Study

Over twenty years ago, we evaluated diet, serum cholesterol, and other variables in 1900 middle-aged men and repeated the evaluation one year later. No therapeutic suggestions were made. Vital status was determined at the 20th anniversary of the initial examination. Scores summarizing each participants dietary intake of cholesterol, saturated fatty acids, and polyunsaturated fatty acids were calculated according to the formulas of Keys and Hegsted and their co-workers. The two scores were highly correlated, and results were similar for both: there was a positive association between diet score and serum cholesterol concentration at the initial examination, a positive association between change in diet score and change in serum cholesterol concentration from the initial to the second examination, and a positive association prospectively between mean base-line diet score and the 19-year risk of death from coronary heart disease. These associations persisted after adjustment for potentially confounding factors. The results support the conclusion that lipid composition of the diet affects serum cholesterol concentration and risk of coronary death in middle-aged American men.

Psychological depression and 17-year risk of death from cancer.

&NA; Psychological depression, measured in 1957‐1958 by the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory at the baseline examination of 2,020 middle‐aged employed men, was associated (p less than 0.001) with a twofold increase in odds of death from cancer during 17 years of follow‐up. The association did not vary appreciably in magnitude among the early (1958‐1962), middle (1963‐1968), and later (1969‐1974) years of follow‐up, persisted after adjustment for age, cigarette smoking, use of alcohol, family history of cancer, and occupational status, and was apparently not specific to any particular site or type of cancer. This result, predicted in advance on the basis of findings by other investigators, is consistent with the hypothesis that psychological depression is related to impairment of mechanisms for preventing the establishment and spread of malignant cells.