Alimentary lipemia and the coagulability of blood: analysis by thrombelastography and silicone clotting time.

THE effect of alimentary lipemia on coagulation has been a matter of controversy for most of the past decade. Reports have confirmed and denied an acceleration of whole blood coagulation.'-'0 A considerable amount of evidence is growing that purports to show lipemia as a factor in the pathogenesis of thrombotic disease, and perhaps even a factor in the genesis of atheroselerosis.1' These speculations are based on the findings initially reported by Fullerton et al.3 that the whole blood coagulation time in silicone is accelerated by alimentary lipemia. The vital importance of this problem led us to study it from a slightly different approach.