ABSTRACT
By the middle of the 1960s it had been generally accepted that elevated blood cholesterol was a risk factor for experiencing a coronary heart disease (CHD) event, such as acute myocardial infarction (MI). However, whether this association was causal, and therefore whether treatment of hypercholesterolaemia would reduce the risk, had yet to be demonstrated. This crucial question was referred to as the ‘lipid hypothesis’.
