Insulin resistance, dietary cholesterol, and cholesterol concentration in postmenopausal women

Questions remain concerning the effect of variations in cholesterol intake on plasma cholesterol concentration, as well as on the role of factors modu lating the metabolic impact of this dietary intervention. To define the imp act of wide variations in dietary cholesterol intake on plasma total and lo w-density lipoprotein (LDL) cholesterol concentrations, as well as testing the hypothesis that resistance to insulin-mediated glucose disposal would a ccentuate the increase in plasma total and LDL cholesterol concentrations i n response to a given increment in dietary cholesterol intake, we performed a prospective, randomized study comparing diets varying in cholesterol con tent in 65 healthy, postmenopausal women, 31 defined as insulin-resistant a nd 34 as insulin-sensitive. The changes in total and LDL cholesterol in res ponse to increments in dietary cholesterol of up to similar to 800 mg/day w ere modest in magnitude, without evidence of a statistically significant di et-induced increase in cholesterol concentration, or of any difference in t he responses of insulin-resistant as compared with insulin-sensitive women. These results indicate that relatively large increments in dietary cholest erol intake had little effect on total or LDL cholesterol concentrations in healthy, postmenopausal women, irrespective of whether they were insulin-r esistant or insulin-sensitive. Copyright (C) 2001 by W.B. Saunders Company.