The aim of the experiment was to investigate the relationship between consumption of cholesterol-enriched diet and plasma and tissue cholesterol content as well as the degree of atherosclerosis in rabbits, to make further investigations on the role of emotional and behavioural factors in diet induced atherosclerosis more conclusive. The experimental rabbits (E) were offered 150 g standard pellet feed daily mixed with 1 egg yolk and 1.5 g cholesterol in substantia during 7 weeks, whereas the control rabbits (C) were fed the same amount of feed without egg yolk and supplementary cholesterol. Significant effect of diet type on total plasma cholesterol, HDL-cholesterol (high density lipoprotein cholesterol) and cholesterol content in liver, heart and muscle was found. However negative correlations between cholesterol food consumption and total plasma cholesterol (r = -0.24) and atherosclerosis (r = -0.40) were found in group E. The relative increase of total plasma cholesterol in E group was greater than that of plasma HDL-cholesterol. Females demonstrated significantly higher total plasma cholesterol and HDL-cholesterol than males. The degree of atherosclerosis was positively correlated with the total plasma cholesterol (r = 0.73, P<0.01) and plasma HDL-cholesterol concentration (r = 0.29) but negatively correlated with ratio HDL/total cholesterol (r = -0.66, P < 0.01) as estimated after the end of the experiment.