ceberezin, I don't think it's fair to say there is no correllation between cholesterol values and heart disease. A correlation is just that, a correlation. It doesn't imply causation. I agree that heart disease is probably caused by inflammation.
Many studies show a correlation between total cholesterol, HDL, triglycerides and even LDL cholesterol (although LDL is the weakest correlation) with heart disease.
For example, here's part of the abstract of an interesting study by a guy named Ridker that appeared in JAMA this summer. Ridker's disclosure is that he holds patents on cardio-CRP, your inflammatory marker, which is also highly correlated with heart disease. This was a 10 year observational study of 15,000 women age 45-65 with no known heart disease upon entry. So it's a pretty big well done study (It was part of the Women's Health Initiative, which also "proved" that post-menopausal estrogen doesn't help prevent heart disease and may actually make it worse, along with increasing breast cancer rates).
"After adjustment for age, smoking status, blood pressure, diabetes, and body mass index, the HRs for future cardiovascular events for those in the extreme quintiles (the lowest 20% versus the highest 20%) were 1.62 (95% CI, 1.17-2.25) for LDL-C, 1.75 (95% CI, 1.30-2.38) for apolipoprotein A-I, 2.08 (95% CI, 1.45-2.97) for total cholesterol, 2.32 (95% CI, 1.64-3.33) for HDL-C, 2.50 (95% CI, 1.68-3.72) for apolipoprotein B100, 2.51 (95% CI, 1.69-3.72) for non–HDL-C, and 2.98 (95% CI, 1.90-4.67) for high-sensitivity CRP (P<.001 for trend across all quintiles). The HRs for the lipid ratios were 3.01 (95% CI, 2.01-4.50) for apolipoprotein B100 to apolipoprotein A-I, 3.18 (95% CI, 2.12-4.75) for LDL-C to HDL-C, 3.56 (95% CI, 2.31-5.47) for apolipoprotein B100 to HDL-C, and 3.81 (95% CI, 2.47-5.86) for the total cholesterol to HDL-C (P<.001 for trend across all quintiles)."
"HR" is hazard ratio, meaning the amount of increased risk. for example a HR of 1.62 means a 62% increased risk, and a HR of 2 means 100% extra risk.
"apolipoprotein A-1" is the protein attached to HDL
"apolipoprotein B-100" is the protein attached to VLDL and LDL
"Non HDL-C" is the total cholesterol minus HDL
"total cholesterol to HDL ratio" is the one included on most fasting lipid tests. It's interesting that this is the most predicitve number on the cholesterol test, and most doctors don't pay any attention to it.
I also think it's interesting that apo B-100 has such a high HR, compared with LDL, since it's found on LDL. But it's also found on VLDL, which makes me think VLDL is probably a pretty good marker for cardiac risk. Another factor is that since each particle of LDL carries apo B, for any given total LDL value if you have more small dense LDL, you'll have more LDL particles, and therefore you'll have more apo B. You may not think LDL correllates with cardiac risk, but small dense LDL probably does...
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