A study looked at whether cutting cholesterol by changing diet could help people live longer or avoid heart problems. One group—the intervention group—swapped out saturated fats (like butter or fatty meat) for vegetable oils high in linoleic acid (like corn or sunflower oil). Their blood cholesterol dropped quite a bit—about 13.8% on average—compared to just a 1% drop in the group that didn’t change their diet. That difference was clear and statistically strong.
But here’s the surprising part: even though their cholesterol went down, it didn’t mean they lived longer. Graphs tracking survival showed no difference in death rates between the two groups, no matter how the researchers sliced the data. In fact, the study found something unsettling—for every 30-point drop in cholesterol (measured as 30 mg/dL or 0.78 mmol/L), the risk of dying actually went up by 22%. This was based on a detailed analysis that adjusted for other factors, and the result was solid.
The researchers also checked if lowering cholesterol helped with heart artery buildup or heart attacks—no luck there either, no improvement. They dug deeper, pulling together five big studies with over 10,000 people total. When they crunched all the numbers, swapping saturated fats for these oils didn’t lower the chances of dying from heart disease (the risk was about the same, ranging from 0.83 to 1.54) or from any cause (ranging from 0.90 to 1.27).
So, what’s the takeaway? For folks like us, 50 to 70 years old, this suggests that just lowering cholesterol with vegetable oils doesn’t automatically mean a healthier heart or a longer life. This particular study, called the Minnesota Coronary Experiment, adds to a pile of evidence hinting that past advice about ditching saturated fats might have been overhyped—partly because not all the research got shared back in the day.