Cholesterol of the Blood Plasma in the Neonatal Period

Abstract

The investigation described in this paper1 represents part of a comprehensive study of the cholesterol in the blood of normal and diseased human subjects. Although the field has been studied extensively by many workers in the past, I felt justified in undertaking such a study for the following reasons :1. There are wide differences in the normal values for total cholesterol of the serum reported by different authors, the range between minimum and maximum average values amounting to almost 100 per cent of the minimum.2 The inconsistent results are due, in considerable part, to the use of inaccurate methods. The frequent publication of new procedures for the determination of cholesterol indicates that none has been found to be entirely satisfactory. Recently Schoenheimer and I3 described a method which permits the rapid determination of total and free cholesterol with satisfactory accuracy in 0.2 cc. of serum or plasma.4 The availability of the procedure made the present study possible.2. Many investigations have been concerned with the determination of cholesterol in whole blood. Such studies are of relatively little value since the cholesterol of the red cells and that of the serum have no evident relation to each other. The cholesterol of the red cells is present entirely as free cholesterol in relatively constant amount, while the cholesterol of the serum is largely combined with fatty acids and varies within wide limits. Analysis of whole blood is comparable to the determination of cholesterol in a mixture of approximately equal parts of two different tissues, such as liver and adrenal gland.

Reference Values for Cord Blood Lipid and Lipoprotein Concentrations

“…Rather extensive studies on the cholesterol concentration in cord blood have been performed by previous investigators (2,3,4,11,12,13,16,17,18). Our findings are in very good agreement with the results from these studies.…”