When people took statins (cholesterol pills), cutting out saturated fat didn’t help them any more than just taking the pills alone — so the pills might be doing all the work, and diet changes don’t add extra benefit.

If you swap out butter and fatty meats for oils like sunflower or soybean oil, you might lower your risk of heart disease by about 30%—just like taking a statin pill—because it helps reduce the 'bad' cholesterol that clogs your arteries.

Most of the old studies on cutting saturated fat were done on older men who weren’t taking cholesterol meds, so we can’t be sure the results apply to today’s diverse patients who often take medication to lower cholesterol.

Statins do not induce significant regression of established atherosclerotic plaque but reduce plaque progression and enhance plaque stability by lowering LDL cholesterol exposure to arterial walls.

Eating less saturated fat—like butter or fatty meats—doesn’t seem to lower the risk of dying from heart problems or other causes, even after years of doing it, according to a review of nine big studies.

Taking statins to lower your 'bad' cholesterol by a small amount can cut your chance of having a heart attack by nearly half—even if you're not at high risk for heart disease yet.