Maybe it is not cholesterol or at least not just the cholesterol

There has been growing evidence that inflammation plays a large role in heart disease (and attacks). Now some are beginning to say that the inflammation may be even more important than cholesterol!

From CBS

"The study, in Thursday's New England Journal of Medicine, shows that reducing inflammation by lowering the levels of CRP in the blood in people with severe heart disease led to fewer heart attacks and deaths, and slowed the progression of heart disease.

CRP levels were controlled in study participants with high doses of the widely-prescribed statin drugs we know are effective in controlling LDL, or "bad" cholesterol. So statins now appear to be useful in fighting heart disease on two fronts. Other methods that have been shown to lower levels of CRP include maintaining a good diet, exercising, losing weight and quitting smoking. Many experts think controlling inflammation by monitoring and curbing CRP levels is at least as important as keeping cholesterol under control.

Indeed, says Senay, the researchers "actually found that CRP was a better predictor of how people did clinically than their cholesterol levels, because people with low cholesterol levels can still have heart attacks. They found a tighter correlation (between) getting (CRP levels) down and how people did clinically than with cholesterol levels."