[7] However, the initial connection between arteriosclerosis and dietary cholesterol would not be established until the research of Russian pathologist Nikolay Anichkov, prior to World War I.
[9] Dutch physician Cornelis de Langen noted the correlation between nutritional cholesterol intake and incidence of gallstones in Javanese people in 1916.
"[12] With the emergence of CVD as a major cause of death in the Western world in the middle of the 20th century, the lipid hypothesis received greater attention.
In the 1940s, a University of Minnesota researcher, Ancel Keys, postulated that the apparent epidemic of heart attacks in middle-aged American men was related to their mode of life and possibly modifiable physical characteristics.
This was to compare the heart attack risk in populations of men engaged in traditional occupations and being from cultures with different diets, especially in the proportion of fat calories of different composition.
[22] By the end of the 1980s, there were widespread academic statements that the lipid hypothesis was proven beyond reasonable doubt,[23][24][25] or, as one article stated, "universally recognized as a law."
[26][27][28][29][30] The medical consensus supports the lipid hypothesis as evidence from separate meta-analyses, prospective epidemiologic studies and randomized clinical trials have demonstrated that elevated levels of LDL blood cholesterol are a significant risk factor for cardiovascular disease.
[31] Too much LDL (called "bad cholesterol") can lead to fatty deposits building up in the arteries, which increases the risk of cardiovascular disease.
A 2017 consensus statement from the European Atherosclerosis Society concluded that "consistent evidence from numerous and multiple different types of clinical and genetic studies unequivocally establishes that LDL causes ASCVD.