When people ate less animal fat, their bad cholesterol went down and their belly fat became less inflamed — and heart attacks dropped fast.

People with higher bad cholesterol tend to have more inflammation-causing immune cells in their belly fat — for every 1 mmol/L rise in cholesterol, these cells go up by about 18%.

In mice with clogged arteries, lowering cholesterol makes the immune cells inside the plaque stop multiplying, which is why the plaque gets smaller — not because fewer cells come in or leave.