Clinical trials of altering dietary fat intake.

Alterations of dietary fat that reduce serum cholesterol are beneficial to people who have the highest risk of death from coronary heart disease (CHD). For other people the benefits are less clear; there is a suggestion (hotly disputed) that cholesterol-lowering by drugs, and possibly by diet, increases the risk of non-CHD death, for reasons that are not understood. Furthermore, fat intake interacts with other dietary and non-dietary factors. The consequences of altering dietary fat seem to be more complex and uncertain than have hitherto been supposed.