Total cholesterol and all-cause mortality – a study among 13M adults

The study methods don't seem to indicate whether they adjusted for statins! If they failed to account for statin use, then they will get the wrong answer due to confounding by indication. https://twitter.com/skathire/status/1110909549811322880 Edit: Found it - they are not accounting for statin use! None of their conclusions seem warranted.

I am personally convinced that we have an extremely primitive understanding of human biology and that we use the biomarkers we have (such as cholesterol) in grossly inappropriate ways. We've seen this story play out time and time again, with everything from vitamin D to HDL/LDL. Low levels of vitamin D are related to everything from depression to heart disease to diabetes, but a recent study gave people over 300% of their daily value of vitamin D every single day…

Unfortunately, this study failed to measure cholesterol oxidization. 20 years ago, when this study started, it was still considered bleeding edge science to even consider that (or a proxy, particle size), and they recorded all of the wrong values A quick glance through the paper does not indicate they measured particle size. It also seems they may have measured LDL/HDL/TG fraction, but then did nothing with it (which basically puts this paper at the technological level of the 1950s). Neither…