[A cholesterol reducing diet is not useful].

In daily practice a cholesterol-lowering diet with intensive monitoring by dieticians leads to a mean decrease of the serum cholesterol level by 2%. Once the monitoring is discontinued, the serum cholesterol level as a rule returns to baseline. Were it possible to maintain a 5% cholesterol reduction throughout life, occurrence of coronary heart disease would in theory be postponed by one to a few months. In diet studies, with observation lasting from 6 to 15 years, no clear favourable effect on the development of coronary heart disease was demonstrated. Prescription of a cholesterol-reducing diet and referral to a dietician are therefore fairly useless.