ABSTRACT
Epidemiological and clinical studies of the factors that influence Coronary Heart Disease (CHD) risk invariably raise questions that cannot be answered in studies of human beings because such studies are either unethical, infeasible, or unaffordable. In such cases, experiments using appropriate animal models have traditionally been used to supplement scientific knowledge. Atherosclerosis (an accumulation of fatty, connective, and necrotic tissue) of the coronary arteries is the principal pathological process that causes CHD. Cynomolgus monkeys (Macaco, fascicularis) are currently the only animal models of gender differences in susceptibility to diet-induced atherogenesis. Among Whites in western society, men have about twice the incidences of CHD and the coronary artery atherosclerosis is twice as extensive as in women (Tejada, Strong, Montenegro, Restropo, & Solberg, 1968; Vanecek 1976; Wingard, Suarez, & Barrett-Connor, 1983). The male to female ratio of coronary artery atherosclerosis extent in cynomolgus monkeys is also a ratio of about 2:1. Like women, female cynomolgus monkeys are protected against atherosclerosis relative to their male counterparts (Hamm, Kaplan, Clarkson, & Bullock, 1983).
