Cholesterol has become such a familiar word in modern health conversations, printed on food labels and discussed at every doctor's visit, that it's easy to forget it has an origin story. That story starts more than 250 years ago, in a place you'd probably never guess: gallstones, not blood.
The First Discovery: 1769, in a French Laboratory
The discovery of cholesterol is generally credited to François Poulletier de la Salle, a French physician and chemist. Around 1769, he isolated a waxy, crystalline substance from human gallstones by dissolving powdered gallstones in warm alcohol. Some historical accounts suggest he had actually isolated the crystals as early as 1758, roughly a decade earlier, but since he never formally published his findings, this earlier date is known mainly through the writings of his colleagues, including the chemists Macquer and Fourcroy. Because of this gap between discovery and publication, sources vary slightly on the exact year, with both 1758 and 1769 appearing in historical records.
At the time, Poulletier de la Salle had no idea he had found anything related to heart disease. He simply recognized that this waxy material was a distinct, previously undescribed substance.
Getting Its Name: Chevreul and "Cholesterine"
About 45 years later, in 1815, French chemist Michel Eugène Chevreul studied the substance further. He confirmed that, unlike ordinary fats, it could not be turned into soap through a chemical process called saponification, which set it apart as a distinct class of compound. Chevreul named it "cholesterine," combining the Greek words chole, meaning bile, and stereos, meaning solid. The modern name "cholesterol" came later, once chemists recognized the compound belonged to the alcohol family and added the "-ol" suffix accordingly.
From a Curiosity to a Suspect: Virchow and Anichkov
For decades after Chevreul's work, cholesterol remained a chemical curiosity with no known connection to disease. That began to change in 1857, when German pathologist Rudolf Virchow observed cholesterol deposits within atherosclerotic plaques in artery walls, offering the first hint that this substance might be connected to cardiovascular disease.
The connection became far more concrete in 1913. Russian pathologist Nikolai Anichkov fed rabbits a diet enriched with cholesterol and observed that they developed arterial lesions strikingly similar to human atherosclerosis. This was one of the earliest experimental demonstrations that cholesterol could directly contribute to plaque formation, a finding that helped lay the groundwork for decades of future cardiovascular research.
Timeline at a Glance
| Year | Milestone |
|---|---|
| 1758 (possibly) | Poulletier de la Salle privately isolates crystals from gallstones, unpublished |
| 1769 | Poulletier de la Salle's discovery becomes known through colleagues' writings |
| 1815 | Chevreul names the substance "cholesterine" |
| 1857 | Virchow identifies cholesterol deposits in atherosclerotic arteries |
| 1913 | Anichkov demonstrates cholesterol-fed rabbits develop arterial lesions |
| 1920s–1930s | Chemists determine cholesterol's precise molecular structure |
| 1985 | Goldstein and Brown awarded the Nobel Prize for discovering the LDL receptor |
Why This History Still Matters
It's a genuinely surprising fact that cholesterol was first found in gallstones, not blood, and that nearly a century passed before anyone suspected it played a role in heart disease. This slow, step-by-step history is part of why cholesterol science took so long to mature. Each discovery depended on the one before it: without Poulletier de la Salle's isolation, Chevreul would have had nothing to name. Without Chevreul's careful characterization, Virchow may not have recognized cholesterol deposits for what they were. And without Virchow's observation, Anichkov's rabbit experiments might never have been designed at all.
This same slow-building foundation eventually led to one of the most important discoveries in modern medicine. In the 1970s, researchers Joseph Goldstein and Michael Brown discovered the LDL receptor, the mechanism by which cells pull LDL cholesterol out of the bloodstream, a discovery that earned them the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1985 and directly paved the way for the development of statin medications still widely used today.
Frequently Asked Questions
Q: Why is cholesterol named after bile if it's mostly discussed in relation to blood and arteries today?
The name reflects where it was first discovered, in gallstones, which form from concentrated bile. By the time scientists understood cholesterol's much broader role throughout the body, including in blood and artery walls, the name had already stuck.
Q: Did early researchers understand that cholesterol was essential for the body, or did they only see it as harmful?
For a long time, cholesterol was studied almost entirely in the context of disease. Its essential biological roles, including building cell membranes and producing hormones, weren't fully appreciated until well into the 20th century, decades after its initial discovery.
Q: How long did it take from the first discovery to the medications people take today?
Roughly two centuries. From Poulletier de la Salle's isolation in the late 1700s to the development of the first statin medications in the late 1980s, the journey spanned more than 200 years of incremental scientific progress.
Key Takeaway
Cholesterol was first discovered in gallstones, not blood, by François Poulletier de la Salle around 1769, and it took nearly a century of further research before scientists began to suspect its connection to heart disease. Although cholesterol is often viewed today mainly as a health risk, this history is a reminder that it is fundamentally an essential molecule, one that took generations of careful scientific work to fully understand.
References
- Rigaudy J, et al. History in Medicine: The Story of Cholesterol, Lipids and Cardiology. E-Journal of Cardiology Practice, European Society of Cardiology. escardio.org/.../history-in-medicine-the-story-of-cholesterol-lipids-and-cardiology
- National Lipid Association. The Lipid Hypothesis. Lipid Spin, Summer 2022. lipid.org/lipid-spin/summer-2022/lipid-hypothesis
- Goldstein JL, Brown MS. A Century of Cholesterol and Coronaries: From Plaques to Genes to Statins. Cell. 2015;161(1):161-172. doi.org/10.1016/j.cell.2015.01.036
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