1950
"In 1950 an American doctor, John Gofman, put forward a hypothesis that blood cholesterol was to blame for the rise in coronary heart disease. This was supported in 1951 when pathologists were sent to Korea to learn about war wounds by dissecting the bodies of dead soldiers. To their surprise they discovered unexpected evidence of coronary heart disease: unexpected for they knew that death from heart disease was extremely rare under middle age and these men averaged only twenty-two years of age. So the pathologists performed detailed dissections on the hearts of the next 300 corpses. In thirty-five percent they found deposits of fibrous, fatty material sticking to the artery walls. A further forty-one percent had fully formed lesions, and in three percent of the soldiers these lesions were sufficiently large that they blocked at least one coronary artery. Thus, over three-quarters of all the men examined showed evidence of serious coronary heart disease – and they were barely out of their teens."
Gofman, J W, et al. The role of lipids and lipoproteins in arteriosclerosis. Science 1950; 111: 166-181, 186