here's some interesting info on Cholesterol
i'm sure this is debatable but thought i'd share.

straight from the site:

"Here are the facts! Click on the blue arrows if you want the scientific evidence! (the blue arrows are on the actual page not here)

1 Cholesterol is not a deadly poison, but a substance vital to the cells of all mammals. There are no such things as good or bad cholesterol, but mental stress, physical activity and change of body weight may influence the level of blood cholesterol. A high cholesterol is not dangerous by itself, but may reflect an unhealthy condition, or it may be totally innocent.

2 A high blood cholesterol is said to promote atherosclerosis and thus also coronary heart disease. But many studies have shown that people whose blood cholesterol is low become just as atherosclerotic as people whose cholesterol is high.

3 Your body produces three to four times more cholesterol than you eat. The production of cholesterol increases when you eat little cholesterol and decreases when you eat much. This explains why the ”prudent” diet cannot lower cholesterol more than on average a few per cent.

4 There is no evidence that too much animal fat and cholesterol in the diet promotes atherosclerosis or heart attacks. For instance, more than twenty studies have shown that people who have had a heart attack haven't eaten more fat of any kind than other people, and degree of atherosclerosis at autopsy is unrelated with the diet.

5 The only effective way to lower cholesterol is with drugs, but neither heart mortality or total mortality have been improved with drugs the effect of which is cholesterol-lowering only. On the contrary, these drugs are dangerous to your health and may shorten your life.

6 The new cholesterol-lowering drugs, the statins, do prevent cardio-vascular disease, but this is due to other mechanisms than cholesterol-lowering. Unfortunately, they also stimulate cancer in rodents, disturb the functions of the muscles, the heart and the brain and pregnant women taking statins may give birth to children with malformations more severe than those seen after thalidomide.

7 Many of these facts have been presented in scientific journals and books for decades but are rarely told to the public by the proponents of the diet-heart idea.

8 The reason why laymen, doctors and most scientists have been misled is because opposing and disagreeing results are systematically ignored or misquoted in the scientific press. "

LOL! You're opening the floodgates here on this one...there's a HUGE thread on this over on the chemical anarchy board. Personally, I think that it isn't that high cholesterol levels need to be ignored but I believe the frenzy the public has been whipped into over cholesterol levels has been overdone by the medical profession. There's two things that are of much greater importance when it comes to cholesterol...I'll try to keep this as understandable as possible. Essentially, in order for cholesterol to clog your arteries it needs to penetrate the blood vessel wall where it builds up until it closes off your artery to normal blood flow. This is accomplished by two main mechanisms: 1.There are many types of cholesterol molecules. One in particular is called LP(a) LP=lipoprotein. The size of this molecule is very important. If you have large sized LP(a) molecules they can't penetrate into the blood vessel wall to start clogging your arteries. Essentially they can't fit. However, if you have small LP(a) molecules they can penetrate into the blood vessel wall. The size of your molecule is partially controlled by genetics and partially controlled by what you eat and how much you exercise. The better you eat and the more you exercise (along with taking some supplements like fish oils) the larger your LP(a) molecule will be. The genetic part of it we can't do anything about, sorry. 2. There's another way for the cholesterol to penetrate your blood vessels and that's by actual damage done to the vessel wall mostly by inflammation. General inflammation throughout the body causes blood vessels to be more susceptible to cholesterol being able to penetrate the vessel wall beginning the process of clogging it. This is why you need to take your anti-ox and fish oils as they help alleviate general systemic inflammation including in the blood vessels.

LOL! You're opening the floodgates here on this one...there's a HUGE thread on this over on the chemical anarchy board. Personally, I think that it isn't that high cholesterol levels need to be ignored but I believe the frenzy the public has been whipped into over cholesterol levels has been overdone by the medical profession. There's two things that are of much greater importance when it comes to cholesterol...I'll try to keep this as understandable as possible. Essentially, in order for cholesterol to clog your arteries it needs to penetrate the blood vessel wall where it builds up until it closes off your artery to normal blood flow. This is accomplished by two main mechanisms: 1.There are many types of cholesterol molecules. One in particular is called LP(a) LP=lipoprotein. The size of this molecule is very important. If you have large sized LP(a) molecules they can't penetrate into the blood vessel wall to start clogging your arteries. Essentially they can't fit. However, if you have small LP(a) molecules they can penetrate into the blood vessel wall. The size of your molecule is partially controlled by genetics and partially controlled by what you eat and how much you exercise. The better you eat and the more you exercise (along with taking some supplements like fish oils) the larger your LP(a) molecule will be. The genetic part of it we can't do anything about, sorry. 2. There's another way for the cholesterol to penetrate your blood vessels and that's by actual damage done to the vessel wall mostly by inflammation. General inflammation throughout the body causes blood vessels to be more susceptible to cholesterol being able to penetrate the vessel wall beginning the process of clogging it. This is why you need to take your anti-ox and fish oils as they help alleviate general systemic inflammation including in the blood vessels.