Roy,

I have not read Dean Ornish's books, but I do know he advocates a
low-fat (almost) vegan diet to his heart patients to actually improve their
heart conditions.  So I'm guessing there is a lot of the
saturated-fat/cholesterol discussion in them.
I say almost vegan because he can't seem to get away from that one
cup of skim milk a day.
He's made quite a name for himself by actually improving his patients'
conditions, rather than just stopping or slowing down further
deterioration, heretofore practically unheard-of among modern allopaths.
Besides the diet, his program includes exercise and stress-reduction
techniques (like yoga & meditation), so it's really hard to make any
assumptions about the (almost) vegan diet by itself.
Hope you find your answers.  Also, I hope the cholesterol numbers
haven't contributed to stress, making matters worse.  I wonder if I want
to get mine tested????

-MS