>Marilyn > Doesn't the presence of heightened levels of serum cholesterol
>indicate that there is plaque deposition taking place because of
>arterial inflammation in the body?
>
>High levels of small-dense LDL --- which as Todd pointed out is
>correlated with high triglycerides -- means that damage is being
>repaired somewhere in the body.
>

It seems that the relationship between Cholesterol and disease is complex
and not well understood. For instance MrFit (research project) found that
for men and women over 50 there was a correlation between higher cholesterol
levels and mortality. In other words the people with the lowest cholesterol
died younger and the people with higher cholesterol lived longer. The
hypothesis was that cholesterol not only relieves inflammation in the
arteries but throughout the body and assist white blood cells in the
isolation of foreign threats, like flu and pneumonia.

The MrFit result seem to uphold the results of the Farmington study which
also found a relationship between cholesterol levels and mortality. They
don't tout these results when they are advertising statin drugs on TV or
flooding your doctors office with fruit baskets, cookies, propaganda and
free samples.