I saw this study mentioned it several books. It looked at the LDL & HDL levels in hospitalized heart attack victims between 2000 and 2006. Overall, they examined the records of 136,905 patients (59% of all heart attack patients during the period).

This is the study where they found that 75% of heart attack patients had LOW LDL cholesterol levels (below 130), and came to the conclusion that we need to lower cholesterol levels even more. The conclusion was so out of whack with the data, that I looked up an actual copy of the report.

They lumped everyone with an LDL level over 159 into the high category (high LDL is considered bad). They also lumped everyone with an HDL lever over 59 into the high category (high HDL is considered good). So, what percentage of heart attack victims had high LDL & high HDL?

0.7%

That's less than 1 percent. Or, to state it another way: 99.3% of heart attack victims have a LDL level below 160 and a HDL level below 60.

What was just as interesting, was that lowering the LDL level increased the rate of heart attacks. 7.1% of victims had an HDL level over 59, but an LDL below 160.

HDL though, seemed to be the key (imho). 92.2% of heart attack victims (no matter what their LDL level) had a HDL level below 60.

So, of course, what are we told to do? Concentrate on lowering our LDL levels. I'm starting to wonder if the conclusion was written before the report, as they don't seem to have anything in common.

A copy of the actual report can be found here:  http://www.ahjonline.com/article/S0002-8703(08)00717-5/fulltext

The relevant numbers can be found in the total cohort grid.

This just moves me more toward the idea that cholesterol levels does not in fact play any active role in causing or preventing heart attacks.

Correlation maybe, causation no.