Scientists studying atherosclerosis (clogging of the arteries) in the laboratory usually induce the disease in healthy animals by adding a large amount of saturated fat and cholesterol to their lab animals’ chow (in scientific terms, supplying the animals with an “atherogenic” diet).

Certain types of monkeys, such as the rhesus monkey and the African green monkey, are frequently used in atherosclerosis research due to their comparable humanlike physiology. When placed on diets high in saturated fat and cholesterol, these primates develop plaque in their coronary arteries in a remarkably similar fashion to the way humans develop plaque. The ultimate result of this study was to confirm what hundreds of animal studies have concluded already…the greater your intake of dietary saturated fat (egg yolks!), the higher your level of “bad” LDL cholesterol and the greater your odds of “clogging up.”

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