A study looked at whether cutting cholesterol by changing diet could help people live longer or avoid heart problems. One group\u2014the intervention group\u2014swapped 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\u2014about 13.8% on average\u2014compared to just a 1% drop in the group that didn\u2019t change their diet. That difference was clear and statistically strong.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But here\u2019s the surprising part: even though their cholesterol went down, it didn\u2019t 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\u2014for 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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The researchers also checked if lowering cholesterol helped with heart artery buildup or heart attacks\u2014no 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\u2019t 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).<\/p>\n\n\n\n
So, what\u2019s the takeaway? For folks like us, 50 to 70 years old, this suggests that just lowering cholesterol with vegetable oils doesn\u2019t automatically mean a healthier heart or a longer life. This particular study, called the Minnesota Coronary Experiment<\/strong>, adds to a pile of evidence hinting that past advice about ditching saturated fats might have been overhyped\u2014partly because not all the research got shared back in the day.<\/p>\n\n\n\n https:\/\/youtube.com\/shorts\/J49_QNgVU5c<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n <\/p>\n\n\n\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" A study looked at whether cutting cholesterol by changing diet could help people live longer or avoid heart<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1134,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[30],"class_list":["post-1132","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-science"],"featured_image_urls":{"full":["https:\/\/americanheartsociety.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/03\/Minnesota1BlogPost.png",432,244,false],"thumbnail":["https:\/\/americanheartsociety.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/03\/Minnesota1BlogPost-150x150.png",150,150,true],"medium":["https:\/\/americanheartsociety.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/03\/Minnesota1BlogPost-300x169.png",300,169,true],"medium_large":["https:\/\/americanheartsociety.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/03\/Minnesota1BlogPost.png",432,244,false],"large":["https:\/\/americanheartsociety.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/03\/Minnesota1BlogPost.png",432,244,false],"1536x1536":["https:\/\/americanheartsociety.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/03\/Minnesota1BlogPost.png",432,244,false],"2048x2048":["https:\/\/americanheartsociety.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/03\/Minnesota1BlogPost.png",432,244,false],"morenews-featured":["https:\/\/americanheartsociety.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/03\/Minnesota1BlogPost.png",432,244,false],"morenews-large":["https:\/\/americanheartsociety.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/03\/Minnesota1BlogPost.png",432,244,false],"morenews-medium":["https:\/\/americanheartsociety.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/03\/Minnesota1BlogPost.png",432,244,false]},"author_info":{"display_name":"Staff","author_link":"https:\/\/americanheartsociety.org\/?author=1"},"category_info":"Uncategorized<\/a>","tag_info":"Uncategorized","comment_count":"0","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/americanheartsociety.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1132","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/americanheartsociety.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/americanheartsociety.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/americanheartsociety.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/americanheartsociety.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1132"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/americanheartsociety.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1132\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1135,"href":"https:\/\/americanheartsociety.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1132\/revisions\/1135"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/americanheartsociety.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/1134"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/americanheartsociety.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1132"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/americanheartsociety.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1132"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/americanheartsociety.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1132"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}