That may be so. But it's undisputed (aside from most keto blogs) that an increase in serum cholesterol and especially LDL-C increases the risk of heart disease.
Studies show that you generally need a level of < 150 mg/dL to avoid heart disease. That's quite a bit below the average "normal" level. But today's average is NOT physiologically optimal.
> But it's undisputed (aside from most keto blogs) that an increase in serum cholesterol and especially LDL-C increases the risk of heart disease.
Sure, but show me where cholesterol intake correlates to LDL.
At some point someone managed to convince the public subconscious that food fat = body fat, and that food cholesterol = body cholesterol. And it's a ridiculous notion.
For starters, saturated fat increases cholesterol and that is almost exclusively in animal products. Animal products are basically the only products to contain dietary cholesterol. So there you have at least a strong correlation.
"Serum cholesterol concentration is clearly increased by added dietary cholesterol but the magnitude of predicted change is modulated by baseline dietary cholesterol. The greatest response is expected when baseline dietary cholesterol is near zero, while little if any, measurable change would be expected once baseline dietary cholesterol was > 400-500 mg/d." (That is 2 eggs or 400 g beef etc.)
That's a 25-year-old revisit of even older studies dating back as far as 1960... none of which controlled for key elements like carbohydrate intake.
Even so, check out this element of its conclusions:
"The greatest response is expected when baseline dietary cholesterol is near zero, while little, if any, measurable change would be expected once baseline dietary cholesterol was > 400-500 mg/d. People desiring maximal reduction of serum cholesterol by dietary means may have to reduce their dietary cholesterol to minimal levels (< 100-150
mg/d) to observe (even) modest serum cholesterol reductions while persons eating a diet relatively rich in cholesterol would be expected to experience little change in serum cholesterol after adding even large amounts of cholesterol to their diet."
It didn't even differentiate HDL from LDL, let alone the actually harmful subsets like small-particle LDL.
> For starters, saturated fat increases cholesterol and that is almost exclusively in animal products.
You conveniently fail to mention that it increases HDL and LDL in proportion, when a common marker for heart disease is the LDL/HDL ratio. [1]
> Animal products are basically the only products to contain dietary cholesterol. So there you have at least a strong correlation.
No, that's a non-sequitor. It would have been a correlation if a higher LDL/HDL ratio was contributed to dietary cholesterol, which it isn't. [2]
From your link:
> High-density lipoprotein (HDL) was consistently increased in most studies, with HDL2 increasing more than HDL3 after cholesterol consumption (42,43). Interestingly, the increase in serum HDL cholesterol re- sulting from cholesterol feeding appears to be greater when the background diet is high in polyunsaturated fatty acids (29). .....
> These subtle changes in lipoprotein composition and concentration-apart from changes in serum total or LDL cholesterol concentrations may help explain recent epidemiologic findings that implicate dietary cholesterol as an independent risk factor for coronary disease after fasting serum total cholesterol and other known cardiovascular risk factors have been controlled for (67, 68). However, because changes in LDL cholesterol accounted for most of the changes in total cholesterol, LDL cholesterol will be the focus ofthe remaining discussion.
Even the Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee doesn't state that cholesterol over consumption is of no concern. [3]
While dietary carbohydrates don't raise cholesterol, they do lower HDL, thus raising the LDL/HDL ratio. [4]
If you'd like, I'll admit that eating animal fats can increase LDL, but it's not the whole picture.
Some bonus sources for low carb (high fat) diets improving cardiovascular health: [5] [6]
But as I've read a lot of them, there's also opposing studies, like: [7]
My point is: approach this from an attempt to find truth, not from trying to prove that animal fat is bad, because it really shines through which one it is.
> Studies show that you generally need a level of < 150 mg/dL to avoid heart disease. That's quite a bit below the average "normal" level. But today's average is NOT physiologically optimal.
My point was that people see the “no cholesterol” message and start eliminating cholesterol from their diet...but then they end up replacing all the sources of fat in their diet with carbohydrates, or in some cases end up not getting enough of some nutrients which are often found in foods that are relatively high in cholesterol (e.g. iron or calcium).
The message about cholesterol should be more nuanced - less “don’t eat cholesterol”, more “don’t consume more than X mg”.
Studies show that you generally need a level of < 150 mg/dL to avoid heart disease. That's quite a bit below the average "normal" level. But today's average is NOT physiologically optimal.