Homogenized Milk and Coronary Artery Disease: Theory, Not Fact

There has been widespread coverage in the news media recently of the claim that the drinking of homogenized milk is a cause of excessive mortality from coronary artery disease in the United States. That this relationship might exist has been proposed by Oster,1 who postulates the existence of a group of diseases caused by the depletion of plasmalogen in cell membranes. He includes arteriosclerosis, myocardial infarction, and angina pectoris as representative disorders with this possible origin.Plasmalogens are a type of phospholipid usually found as a component of cell membranes of muscle and of the myelin sheath of nerve fibers. The major plasmalogen of myocardium is a choline phosphatide containing an unsaturated fatty acid in a typical ester linkage and a second fatty acid as a vinyl ether,2 thereby differing from the more usual phospholipid exemplified by lecithin. Fatty aldehydes or plasmals can be released from this second