Effect of Dietary Cholesterol on Serum and Egg Cholesterol Levels over a Period of Time

THE influence of dietary cholesterol on the levels of serum and egg cholesterol of the laying hen was recently studied by Harris and Wilcox (1963) and the literature was critically reviewed. These workers found that after 11 days of feeding crystalline cholesterol to hens the serum and egg cholesterol levels were significantly increased. They interpreted their findings to suggest that laying hens are able to prevent a marked hypercholesteremia by excretion of cholesterol into the yolk. Since there is at least one report in the literature (Kurnick et al., 1958) in which no increase in yolk cholesterol was obtained when cholesterol was fed to laying hens, the possibility of time being a variable in these observations by various workers appeared possible. This study was conducted to determine the effect of feeding cholesterol to laying hens on serum and egg yolk cholesterol levels over a period of time. Single Comb…