I remember reading of a study some time ago which claimed to show that dietary cholesterol was not as significant a contributor to serum cholesterol as saturated fat. They fed people tons of the stuff, with minimal effect. Anyone know anything about this?
I’m not an expert on dietary matters, but my guess would be that the confusion arises due to the fact that consumption of large amounts of fats which incidentally contain cholesterol leads to high blood cholesterol levels. I don’t think that there is a direct relationship between amount of cholesterol consumed and blood cholesterol level. I know for a fact that this is not a complete answer. We must have covered this before, but I don’t want to get fired for laziness so you’ll have to look yourself.
Most of the cholesterol (LDL) in your bloodstream has NOT come from dietary sources. Rather, it has been produced by your body. One of the main factors controlling how much your body produces is the amount of saturated fat in your diet.
So, for equal amounts of dietary cholesterol and total fat, the more of the latter that is saturated, the higher will be your LDL level.