http://www.hsph.harvard.edu/nutritionsource/what-should-you-eat/fats-full-story/
With headlines like “Saturated Fat is Not Your Heart’s Enemy,” and “NOT GUILTY: The Long-Standing Vilification of Saturated Fat Finally Turning to Vindication,”(23,24) some of the media and blog coverage of these studies would have you believe that scientists had given a green light to eating bacon, butter, and cheese. But that’s an oversimplified and erroneous interpretation. Read the study and subsequent studies more closely, and the message is more nuanced: Cutting back on saturated fat can be good for health if people replace saturated fat with good fats, especially, polyunsaturated fats. (16,25) Eating good fats in place of saturated fat lowers the “bad” LDL cholesterol, and it improves the ratio of total cholesterol to “good” HDL cholesterol, lowering the risk of heart disease. Eating good fats in place of saturated fat can also help prevent insulin resistance, a precursor to diabetes. (26)
More recently, several studies seemed to suggest that eating diets high in saturated fat did not raise the risk of heart disease—a finding that ran counter to decades of dietary advice. (21,22) One highly-publicized report analyzed the findings of 21 studies that followed 350,000 people for up to 23 years. Investigators looked at the relationship between saturated fat intake and coronary heart disease (CHD), stroke, and cardiovascular disease (CVD). Their controversial conclusion: “There is insufficient evidence from prospective epidemiologic studies to conclude that dietary saturated fat is associated with an increased risk of CHD, stroke, or CVD.”(21)
A body of scientific studies shows only a weak relationship between the amount of cholesterol a person consumes and his or her blood cholesterol levels (34)...For most people, the amount of cholesterol eaten has only a modest impact on the amount of cholesterol circulating in the blood. (37)
A big nail in the coffin came from the Women's Health Initiative Dietary Modification Trial, published in the February 8, 2006, Journal of the American Medical Association. (9) This eight-year trial, which included almost 49,000 women, found virtually identical rates of heart attack, stroke, and other forms of cardiovascular disease in women who followed a low-fat diet and in those women who didn't.
The money line from the article:
As research grows on diet and heart disease, it’s becoming clearer that looking at a single nutrient in isolation cannot tell us the whole story about a person’s heart disease risk. People eat foods, not nutrients, and they eat them in an overall dietary pattern. The so-called “Western” diet pattern—high in red meat and processed meat, refined grains, potatoes, and sugary drinks, and low in fruits, vegetables, whole grains, and healthy fats—is associated with higher risk of heart disease.
In other words, the recent scientific findings are that eating saturated fat and cholesterol has no affect on heart disease, and there are other factors involved.
I had read this particular article in the past, so I was already familiar with it. It reminded me of someone that was aware of the newer information, but just couldn't let go of the past, so they took half a step forward while hedging their bets by keeping the other foot in the past. It does do well to point out the risks of carbs, sugar, and trans-fats (things most people don't worry about).
If there is a big problem I have with this article though, it's that it's still stuck in the low LDL mindset. As you could see from the UCLA study, high LDL isn't associated with heart attacks. Low LDL is associated with heart attacks, yet people (even doctors) still cling to the idea that low LDL prevents heart attacks.
The other problem with pushing low LDL, is that people with lower LDL have higher incidences of other medical disorders (and higher overall mortality rates). This seems to be because LDL also has a function as part of the immune system.
For example, there is an inverse relationship between cholesterol levels and hospitalization for infectious diseases. The lower the cholesterol level, the higher the hospitalization rate (and visa versa). http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2809530/
Low cholesterol is associated with a higher risk of HIV: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/9436759
There is also a link between low cholesterol and hemorrhagic stroke in the elderly: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/8898804
If you just wander around pubmed reading articles, it's amazing the number of studies you come across that link low cholesterol levels to some disease or disorder. It certainly explains why low cholesterol levels are associated with higher mortality rates in the elderly.
IMHO (and it is my opinion here) even if there was a cholesterol/heart-attack connection, you would still have to question whether lowering your cholesterol was the best thing for your overall health. While heart disease is the leading single cause of death, the leading overall cause of death (at every age level) is something other than heart disease (all the other stuff combined).What good is it to be "heart healthy" if it means you'll die younger of something else?
Yet, that seems to be the focus of the path we've gone down. Lower heart disease mortality rates at all costs, even if if means mortality rates for everything else goes up.