The Framingham Heart Study
This is the most often quoted long-term study on the risks of heart disease and strokes.
Good or Bad News? Very difficult to tell. The study has produced risk-factors that seem to be very helpful. But many of the results were unexpected and were/are confusing to researchers.
Politically, the unexpected results produced by the Framingham Heart Study have been most unwelcome. Results that were not what was expected, were "corrected" for press reports. The publication of results was delayed. Results considered "suspect" were buried for years.
The Great Cholesterol Debate
If HDL-Cholesterol is protective, we can call it "good cholesterol."
So LDL-Cholesterol is "bad" and almost everyone is prescribed a statin to reduce their CVD risk.
It's now well known that any effort to reduce cholesterol levels by diet cannot succeed. Your body produces it's own cholesterol independent of your diet.
The link between LDL-Cholesterol and CVD is tenuous. Both the Lyon Heart Study and the 
Women's Health Initiative show no effect of LDL-Cholesterol of CVD.
If there is any risk at all in LDL-Cholesterol, it arises from small dense particles it can carry.
No Change to Guidelines
The results of the Framingham Heart Study and The Women's Health Initiative, demonstrate that the hypothesis about the connection between your diet and your heart disease, the idea that saturated fat in the diet, creates high cholesterol and causes heart attacks is wrong. Besides, on a low-fat high-carbohydrate diet people were getting obese.
These results were unexpected. "We know we are right," remarked an astonished researcher. Yet, his results confirmed just the opposite, and therefore, that the Dietary Guidelines must be wrong. However, despite these results, no real change is offered, in 2010 or 2015. Why is that?
This is just my speculation: political considerations. The US Department of Agriculture has a large stake in what the recommendations are. US Agriculture is massively invested in grain production, particularly growing corn. That industry is being protected.
And: more political considerations. A diet low in carbohydrates is more expensive. There is a very big underclass in the USA, and the cost of food is a critical matter for politicians. They don't want a demand for higher incomes for purchasing healthy food to develop. The food currently recommended by the guidelines is relatively low cost.
Dr William Castelli, Director, Framingham Heart Study, 1992
"We found that the people who ate the most cholesterol, ate the most saturated fat, ate the most calories; weighed the least and were the most physically active."
End of the Cholesterol Myth
The Framingham Study was intended to produce the most conclusive evidence. The study began in 1948. By 1978, after 30 years this was the result.
| Men and Women | 205-264 mg/dL | No relationship | |
| Men | Less than 220 mg/dL | Increased risk | |
| Men | Mid-range mg/dL | Increased risk | |
| Men | Greater than 220 mg/dL | Decreased risk | |
So that's a total failure to prove that high total cholesterol causes heart attacks. More-over the evidence shows that at least for older men high total cholesterol might be protective.
The Framingham Heart Study began in 1948, which is early in the long saga or heart disease and strokes and what to do about it.
